


The Great Rick-xup

by mariachiMushroom



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Cannibalism, Drug Use, Eye Trauma, Guro, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Incest, M/M, Molestation, Parallel Universes, Prostitution, Social Media, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, Underage Prostitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-15 08:00:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariachiMushroom/pseuds/mariachiMushroom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a routine “resource acquisition” mission, C-136 Rick gets his Morty switched with B-290 Rick’s Morty. The B-290 Rick and Morty just so happen to be in a sexual relationship. Hilarity ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Rick-xup

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has special formatting that may not render well on small screens. For best results, read on a desktop browser.

C-136 | B-290  
---|---  
  
“Wake up Morty, wake up, it's important.” The sleeping boy groaned, and rubbed his eyes. What was Rick up to this time? Morty always got drafted into helping his grandfather's crazy plans, which were usually dangerous, unethical, illegal or all three combined.

“Aww geez, Rick, can't this wait until morning?” Morty complained. “It's like, four o'clock or something, you're gonna make me fall asleep in class again.”

“Listen, Morty, this is important. The three moons of Xebular in dimension B-290 are gonna align in thirty minutes, do you know what that means?” Rick paced around in Morty's room, buzzing with manic energy.

“Uhh, I dunno Rick—”

“It means that the tide is gonna go out! The tide is gonna go out and we're gonna be able to harvest lots of crystals growing from the ocean floor. I need those crystals, Morty, I need them to power my robots, my robots that do the science. But we gotta get there before the tide comes up, so hurry up!”

“All right, all right!” Morty snatched his jeans from the floor and scootched each leg up. It was not until he was fumbling with the buttons that he realized he'd put his pants on inside-out. Rick tapped his foot impatiently.

“Shake a leg, slowpoke, you're not the one with one foot in the grave. Here, take some of this stuff.” Rick pulled out a bag of white powder from his labcoat pocket. “It'll really wake you up, I mean bam! Better than a near death experience!”

“I'm not going to snort coke at four am!”

“Relax, Morty, it's just caffeine. Hold on, I'm gonna fix us up some lines.” Rick pushed aside the action figures and unfinished homework on Morty's desk and cut two lines of white powder, one three times as long as the other. Rick took out a crisp hundred dollar bill and rolled it into a tube, using it as a straw to snort the long line.

“Woo, that's strong! Your turn.” The boy hesitantly took the rolled bill. He tilted his head, squinched his eye shut, and inhaled sharply. A burst of pain exploded in his nasal cavity. “Achoo!” The remaining powder flew into the air.

“Geez, Morty, glad I didn't spring for the good stuff. Now let's get crack-a-lackin, we're burning moonlight!”

Rick pulled out his portal gun and fired it, creating a green spiral of light. The mad scientist pulled Morty by the arm into the portal. There was the familiar slimy-slickness of piercing the membrane between dimensions—

| 

“Hey Morty, hey, hey, wake up.” A thin hand shook Morty Smith's bare shoulder. The boy stirred and propped himself up.

“What's wrong, Rick, did you have a nightmare again? It's like the third time this week,” said Morty. “You should steal some of Mom's sleeping pills.”

“No can do. I took too many, they don't work on me anymore.” Rick reached for his flask and took his first swig of booze for the day, swishing it around like mouthwash. “And this time was on purpose. The three moons of Xebular are gonna align in thirty minutes, and they make the acid, the-the ocean, they make the tide go out. And do you know what's on the bottom of that ocean?”

“No?”

“Crystals, Morty! Power crystals! I need those crystals, Morty, I need them to power my robots, my robots that do the science. But we gotta get there before someone poaches them, so hurry up!” Rick grabbed his blue shirt and pulled it over his head.

“All right, all right, I'm coming,” Morty yawned. He reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head as he found it, both inside out and backwards.

“Fuck, Morty, you're a mess.” Rick had already dressed, his belt on and shirt tucked in. “You need an upper or you'll be useless to me.” Rick pulled out a bag of white powder from his labcoat pocket. Pushing off the chip bags and condom wrappers on Morty's desk, he cut two lines of white powder, one three times as long as the other. Using a rolled hundred dollar bill, Rick inhaled the longer line straight up his nose.

“Your turn, kid.”

“Gee, thanks, Rick,” said the boy, following Rick's lead. As soon as the last bit of white powder disappeared, Morty's eyes widened. “Woah, this stuff is great! I feel like I could punch a bear!”

“Don't get too cocky, it's just anhydrous caffeine. Morty, you got no tolerance for the good stuff. Now, let's go!”

Rick pulled out his portal gun and fired it, creating a green spiral of light. The mad scientist pulled Morty by the arm into the portal. There was the familiar slimy-slickness of piercing the membrane between dimensions—  
  
| 

—and then they were on the obsidian shores of the planet Xebular. Up in the sky, three moons lined up in the purplish sky like a perfect billiards shot. A sea of arsenical green retreated towards the horizon, revealing jagged groves of cerulean crystals.

It looks like they weren't the only ones here for the harvest. A few feet down the beach portaled in another Rick and Morty pair.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Rick shouted.

“What does it look like?” said Other Rick. “I'm jacking your crystals, bro!”

“I'm sorry, Rick, you must be crys-taken,” said the first Rick. Morty and Other Morty groaned at the pun. “You're trespassing in my home universe. I could report you to the Council and haul your ass to Rick Prison. They don't take kindly to poaching.”

“Well, it's not like I was going to wait five hundred years until the moons aligned in my universe. Grandpa needs himself a new pair of grappling shoes!” The two Ricks circled each other in a Mexican standoff, eyes narrowed, fingers prickling. They both reached into their labcoat pockets—

“Stop!” The Mortys ran between the Ricks, holding their arms outstretched like a human shield. “You're like brothers, or-or clones. Rick should not fight fellow Rick.” Both Ricks scoffed at the Mortys' peacemaking.

“Ever heard of Darwin, huh? Survival of the fittest?” said one Rick.

“It's how Mother Nature weeds out the week,” agreed the other Rick. “The best Ricks get to do the best science.”

“But there's an entire ocean full of crystals.” said a Morty. “That's more than you'll use in a lifetime.”

“And besides, isn't the tide coming in soon?” pointed out the other Morty. The Ricks glared at each other.

“It's the principle of the thing, I-I can't let any old Rick steal my shit right out from underneath my nose,” said a Rick.

“Well, if we keep fighting, none of us are going to—urrp—get any crystals,” said the other Rick. “We've already wasted ten minutes, the tide's only going to be out for another fifteen. We gotta-gotta put aside our differences, work together for once, you know what I'm saying?”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya.”

“Tell you what, we'll pool our Mortys for the harvest, then split the crystals 50-50.”

“I'm thinking more 70-30.”

“Oh, look at this, my hand is dialing Rick XBB-570, you know, the one who perfected the Morty cloning technology? I'm sure he'd be happy to lend some extra manpower over to help with the harvest.”

“You hate that guy as much as I do. When all you have is Mortys, everything looks like a low-res porno.”

“Hey!”

“Don't complain, Morty, I'm the one who keeps routing the internet so our neighbors get all the DCMA notices. Anyway, I'll count this as a 'collaboration' this time, but I'm keeping my eye on you, Rick.”

“Fine, Rick,” said the other Rick.

With the combined efforts of two Rick-and-Mortys, the harvest proceeded smooth as a 21-year-old scotch. One Rick used the portal gun to sever a spire of crystal at the base, then the Mortys pushed the crystal through a portal directed by the other Rick. By the time the acid ocean was lapping at their shoes, both backyards were piled high with blue crystals.

“All right, time to pack it in,” said a Rick.

“Good job, team!” The Mortys gave each other a high-five.

“So, this 'teamwork' thing turned out pretty well. You know, you're all right, for a council asskisser.”

“Same for you, rogue agent. Let's keep in touch.” The two Ricks exchanged dimensional coordinates while the Mortys hugged goodbye.

“Hey, it was fun working with you, Morty.”

“Yeah, Morty, I didn't throw my back or get a hernia at all this time. You know, I got a copy of the newest racing game, you know, the one with the non-copyright infringing Italian plumber?”

“Wow, it hasn't even come out yet in my dimension.”

“You should come over and check it out.”

“Sure!”

“All right you two, give your farewell kisses and let's go.” The Ricks and the Morties paired up to portal back to their home dimensions.

“Bye! See ya later!”  
  
Rick and Morty reappeared in Morty's bedroom, where their adventure had started.

“That was fun! I didn't get shot at once. We should hang out with other Ricks and Mortys more.”

“Yeah, well, I didn't want to call you out in front of the other—urrp—Rick, but your shirt was inside out and backwards the whole time.”

“Aww, man, you should have let me know.”

“Well, take it off, before you go to bed. You've got a long day ahead of you.”

| 

Rick and Morty reappeared in Morty's bedroom, where their adventure had started.

“That was fun! I didn't get maimed once. We should hang out with other Ricks and Mortys more.”

“Yeah, well, your pants were inside out the whole time, Morty.”

“Geez, Rick, you should have told me,” Morty pouted. “Now they're gonna think I'm such a slob.”

“Hey, you done good, kid.” Rick ruffled Morty's hair. “Now go to bed. We've got a long day ahead of us.”


	2. An Ordinary Day

C-136 | B-290  
---|---  
  
For the rest of the night, Rick analyzed the properties of the crystals, trying to determine the best way to harness their inherent instability for the purposes of power generation. Sleep was a waste of time anyway. So absorbed was he in his work that he barely grunted when the family settled around his perch at the dining room table for breakfast.

“Morning Mom, morning Summer, morning Rick,” said Morty as he clomped down the stairs, waving hi to his family. At the sight of Jerry, he froze. “Dad? What are you doing here?”

“Why wouldn't I be here?” said Jerry, in that boiled-potatoes-and-mayo voice of his. Morty ran to Jerry's side and wrapped his sagging, middle-aged belly in a hug.

“I thought—y-you and Mom—you were gonna split up!” the boy sobbed into Jerry's mold-green shirt.

“What? I'm not going anywhere, Morty,” said Jerry.

“Your father and I might have had some … small disagreements,” added Beth, “But that doesn't mean we're going to abandon our marriage. After all, we still have the mortgage to pay off.”

“It must have been a bad dream,” said Jerry, patting Morty's head. “You certainly look like you've been tossing and turning all night.”

“A-actually, I was hanging out with Rick. We went to another dimension and got some crystals that were on the bottom of the ocean.”

“So that's why there's a giant pile of blue crystals crushing the back lawn!” Jerry glared at Rick. Rick had better things to do than worry about appeasing that emblem of mediocrity. He scanned the crystal sample he was holding with a laser, examining the refraction pattern for any impurities.

“They're very important crystals, Jerry, I need them to do science. You wouldn't—urrp—wouldn't understand; it's very complicated,” said Rick, switching the glasses he wore to the ultraviolet spectrum.

“But I spent so much time on the grass, watering, cutting, weeding, I even played music to it!”

“Well, that's your problem. Cellulose-based life forms actually have taste.”

“Well, that pile of rocks better disappear before the homeowner's association fines us.”

“Fine, fine, I was planning on breaking them down today anyway.” Rick pushed himself away from the table and sauntered to the backyard, where a pile of massive blue crystals glistened in the morning sun. Each crystal had to be cleaved to the right size, irradiated, dipped in acid, baked at 2000K, and then left to cool. All incredibly tedious grunt work that nevertheless required his attention. As he mentally calculated how long it would take to process the massive pile of crystals, Rick could feel his mind drifting already. If left to his own devices, he'd probably work for ten minutes and then decide that he really needed to catch today's episode of “All My Biceps.”

Fortunately, he had drugs. Rick shuffled around in his lab coat for his bottle of amphetamine pills, and swallowed 30 mg to start with, washing it down with a swig from his flask. While he was waiting for the stimulants to kick in, he made several trips moving crystals to the garage.

“Here, Rick, you dropped a piece.”

“Thanks Morty—hey wait, aren't you supposed to be at school? I mean, not that school isn't pointless and dumb, but Jerry seemed pretty—urrp—pretty mad this morning and I don't want to have to erase his memory again if you get grounded.”

“Uhh, well, there's not really much point in me going to school, right? You said so yourself.”

“Heh, I thought you wanted to ogle that Jessica girl.” Morty rubbed the back of his head.

“S-she's out of my league. And anyway, I'd rather be here, helping you.” Well, Rick wasn't going to argue with that logic. He tossed the boy the laser knife he was using to slice up the crystals.

“All right, this is real—urrp—delicate work, so don't interrupt me. All you need to do is to keep moving the crystals to the garage, and I'll handle the rest.”

“That's it? I-I could probably help with something else, you know, I know my way around a sonic screwdriver—”

“Just keep those crystals coming, and stay out of my way.” Rick cracked his back and hunched over his bench. He could feel the hyperfocus starting to kick in. Time to start working.

| 

Morty slept like the dead for a scant few hours before being resurrected by the sound of his alarm. He stumbled out of the bed for the second time, groaning like a zombie. Why couldn't Rick restrict his adventures to weekend nights? Morty splashed some water on his face, and then trudged downstairs.

“Hi Mom, hi Summer, hi Rick,” said Morty as the dining room table came into view. Rick was scanning a chip of crystal with a laser, Summer was tapping on her cellphone, and Beth was scooping the last soggy remnants of a bowl of cereal. But Jerry's seat at the head of the table was empty, without even a plate to mark his place.

“Hey, where's Dad?” asked Morty.

“I don't know,” Beth said through pursed lips, “I'm not his keeper.”

“Morty, we've been over this before,” said Rick, shoveling toast one-handedly into his mouth. “Your parents are getting divorced.”

“What!” Morty warbled. “I thought you and Dad were working things out!”

“The writing on the wall's so obvious, even Stevie Wonder could read it,” said Rick, now staring intently at the crystal through a set of goggles.

“Morty, I know this change has been hard on you,” said Beth, “But your father and I just have too many differences to keep living together. I'm sure life will be much … quieter when we separate. Who knows, maybe I'll even be able to go back to med school and finally become a people surgeon.”

“But-but-but—”

“Now you broke my brother,” said Summer. “Couldn't you at least have waited until he left for college?”

“If you think I'm spending another four years with that—that man-child you—” Beth took a deep breath. She rose from the table and started clearing away the breakfast dishes. The porcelain clattered in her hand. “I'm going to work now. If I'm not back by eight, there's pizza in the freezer.”

“Wait, Mom—” Beth slammed the door. Morty stared at the table, too queasy to eat. How could Summer and Rick eat breakfast so nonchalantly when the family was falling apart around them! Morty looked around the room. The beige walls seemed a tint off, the pictures on the walls had shifted by an inch, even his shirt had a rough and overpowering texture. Morty's breathing quickened. Was the room spinning? Or just his head?

“Hey, Morty, snap out of it!” Rick gripped his shoulder. “Don't have a fucking panic attack every time Beth talks about the D-word. Think of the bright side, Morty. Since that idiot Jerry isn't aroOOOound to nag us, you can do whatever you want.”

“Yeah,” added Summer, “like, I'm going to the mall today. There's a total surfer hottie working at the Smoothie Shack and I think it's time for a juice cleanse.”

“Morty, be like your sister and play hooky. You can help me work on the crystals, they're real important, a lot more important than memorizing the capital of Paris.”

“Um, gee Rick, I'm sorry, but I should go. There's a big English test today and I really can't miss it.” Plus the thought of staying in the house after his mom's big reveal made Morty feel itchy and claustrophobic. “I'll help you after school once I'm done with my homework.”

“Oh.” Rick blinked, surprised for a moment, then covered it with his usual scowl. “Fine, Morty, I'll just—urrp—just do it all myself. I guess someone's not getting a hover scooter for his birthday.”  
  
***

At some point, Rick's eyes could no longer focus on the microscopic fault lines in the crystals. He checked his watch, and found it was three o'clock in the afternoon. To Rick's right was a neatly-stacked shelf full of baked crystals in the final stages of cooling. His mind raced through the options for what he could make with so many power crystals. A gun for his ship that could take out an entire planet! No, no, a hoverboard that he and Morty could use to shred sick waves on the proton seas of Krebulos 6! No, wait, a powered exoskeleton he could use to compete in the interdimensional Globnar Games! Rick drooled at the possibilities.

Huh, he actually had enough water in him left to drool. Usually he was pretty dehydrated after having taken such a large dose of amphetamines. And washing the pills down with straight liquor didn't help either. Come to think of it, Rick remembered downing several glasses of water over the course of the day. He looked up at his work bench, and sure enough, there was a full glass of water within arm's reach. Rick picked up the glass, noting that it was room-temperature and therefore condensation-free.

“H-hey Rick, are you coming down? Do you want some more water?” Like a butler, Morty appeared at Rick's side with a pitcher of water in one hand and a sandwich in another. Rick's stomach twisted, reminding him that he'd skipped lunch. He grabbed the sandwich and took a bite.

“Needs more mayo, Morty,” said Rick around a mouth of tuna salad. “What am I eating here, a sandwich or a desert? Eh? Eh?” Rick prodded Morty with his elbow.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, you're so pun-dere.” Morty deposited the jug of water on the workbench and started sweeping up the crystal shards on the floor. “So, uhh, how long are you going to keep working for?”

“Well, if I push hard today, I think I can get through half the pile. Gotta—urrp—gotta work quick, these crystals will melt in a hard rain.” Rick reached into his pocket for his bottle of pills, only to have Morty grab his hand before he could pop them in his mouth.

“Uh, Rick? Maybe you should take it easy for the rest of the day, I mean, you've already had a lot, I can check the weather to see if it's going to rain this week.” Rick pulled his hand free and downed the pills.

“Do I look like a college freshman, Morty? You think I can't handle a little bit of stimulant psychosis?”

| 

***

Morty sat at the plastic lunch table, slowly nibbling away at a bag of chips. The salt stung his bruised lip, a gift from Justin, the new school bully. This morning, Morty had sat at his usual seat in the back of the classroom, but his accustomed perch had been re-assigned to Justin, who had the seating chart to back up his blow.

The English test that he thought was today and actually studied for never happened. Instead, when he walked into Math class, he'd been greeted with a massive bundle of stapled paper. Looking at the rows of questions made his head swim, and he hadn't even been given a formula sheet. Even if he could have deduced the formulas from first principles, he wouldn't have had enough time to calculate the answers. Morty resorted to writing the number zero in all the answer boxes, hoping he'd at least answer one correctly.

And to top it all off, when Morty went to lunch, he'd discovered that someone had stolen his food. He wasn't sure why someone would want to take an overly-dry tuna sandwich, but if they were that desperate, they probably needed it more than he did. From the few quarters he had rattling in the bottom of his backpack, Morty scraped together enough money to get a bag of chips. It would have to tide him over until dinner.

“Hey, Morts, you wanna see my newest masterpiece?” trilled Ana Mason, the self-proclaimed otaku who was his companion at the lunch table. She pushed a battered composition notebook in Morty's direction.

“Uhh, does it have tentacles in it?” If Morty never saw another tentacle in his life, it would be too soon. Morty had been slapped, grabbed, and slimed on enough in his adventures across the galaxy to last a lifetime.

“Mayyyybbbeeee,” Ana drawled, quirking her mouth in a way that was supposed to resemble a cat face, but actually made her look like she'd licked a lemon. Morty looked around for an escape but the only other person at the table was Rocking Boy, so called because he wore the same unwashed black Metallica t-shirt to school everyday, and also because he constantly rocked back and forth, like a human-sized metronome.

So when Rick showed up in a flash of green, bug-eyed and ranting about spies from the planet Ennesai, Morty was more than willing to go with him.  
  
***

And that's how Rick and Morty ended up fleeing an the entire Ennasayn space fleet, their lone ship pursued by swarms of wasp-shaped vessels.

“Hold on tight, Morty!” Rick called as he veered the ship hard to the left to avoid the fleet's laser guns. Morty rattled in his seat, just barely held down by the seatbelt.

“Ahh! Rick, d-did you really have to destroy the entire capitol? Couldn't you have just deleted your own files from the database?”

“Nobody spies on me and gets away with it!” Rick might have taken too many stimulants and he might have gotten a teeny bit paranoid that his belt buckle was actually an Ennesayan surveillance device. When they went to the planet Enessai to complain, Morty got lost on the way to the bathroom and stumbled into a completely unrelated plot to tap video communications on every planet and sell the footage on the galactic market as porn and/or blackmail. Rick proceeded to drop the N-bomb in the central data warehouse underneath the capitol city. And by “N”, he meant “nuclear.”

“Oh geez, Rick, we've got ships incoming at three o'clock, nine o'clock, a-a-and every minute in between!”

“Make an appointment with my secretary, 'cause death is not on my schedule motherfuckers!” roared Rick. He pressed pedal to metal and shot straight into the nearest asteroid belt.

“How many are we losing, Morty?”

“They're not following us into the asteroid belt, Rick!”

“Ha! Cowards! Suck my geriatric balls! Woo!” Rick's heart hammered from some combination of adrenaline and amphetamines.

“Uh, Rick, you might want to take a look at this.” Rick glanced in the rear-view mirror to see that the enemy ships were organizing into concentric circles. Their laser guns glowed in unison.

“Shit, they're just going to vaporize everything!” Rick knocked his head against the steering wheel. It wouldn't be so bad to have his last stand be as a defender of freedoms against an oppressive intergalactic government. Maybe they'd name a constellation for him. A hand tugged at his lab coat.

“What are we going to do, Rick?” Morty was looking at Rick with big-ol' eyes, full of fear and hope. Rick couldn't give up now.

“There is one thing.” Rick opened up the floor panel of the spaceship and pulled out the power source. “If I destabilize the energy core, I can rip open a wormhole that will get us the hell out of dodge!”

“And the wormhole will lead back to Earth?”

“Probably,” said Rick, unscrewing a panel on the side of the box. “Or drop us into a black hole. Fifty-fifty.”

“C-couldn't we just use the portal gun to get out of here? I-I mean, it's right here and charged an everything.”

“I am not abandoning this ship, Morty! You know how much keef is in this carpet?” Rick pried open the energy core and shoved a handful of concentrated dark matter inside. The box pulsed, a throb in space that rattled Rick's teeth. Each heartbeat came slower than the next, like his heart was pumping the syrupy sludge at the bottom of a cup of coffee. The energy core crunched in on itself, sucking in the metal case, the ship, and its inhabitants.

“And awaaaayyyy we go!” Rick yelled over Morty's pained screams, as the two humans were stretched, putty-like, by the pull of the the wormhole.  

| 

***

And that's how Rick and Morty ended up fleeing the entire Ennasayn space fleet, their lone ship pursued by swarms of wasp-shaped vessels.

“Hold on tight, Morty!” Rick yelled right before he veered hard to the left. Morty clutched the ships seat, barely avoiding being thrown out of his chair.

“Rick, did you really have to destroy their planet's capitol? Couldn't you have just wiped your own data?”

“No one spies on me and gets away with it!” Perhaps Morty shouldn't have told Rick about the massive data collection operation he'd stumbled across while looking for the bathroom. How was he supposed to know that Rick would completely overreact and blow the place up! Morty looked out the back window. Behind them was a solid mass of spaceships, all gunning for them.

“Oh geez, Rick, it's lit up like the Fourth of July back there!”

“Well, give me liberty or give me death, motherfuckers!” The ship zoomed straight for the nearest asteroid belt. The trailing fleet of ships fell behind as the small craft zipped through the rock-infested space.

“How many are blowing up behind us, Morty?”

“They're not following us, Rick, we're safe!”

“Haha! Well, slap my balls and call me Sally. We did it!” While Rick whooped and hollered, Morty saw that the enemy ships, instead of pulling away in defeat, were organizing into concentric circles. Their laser guns glowed in unison.

“Uh, Rick, you might want to take a look at this.” Rick turned his head.

“Fuck! They're gonna vaporize the whole asteroid belt!” Rick slumped against the steering wheel and closed his eyes.

“Y-you can't just give up!” said Morty, shaking Rick's shoulder. There's gotta be some way out!” Rick looked at Morty a second, and then slid under the steering column. He wrenched off the floor covering and extracted a metal box.

“If I destabilize the energy core, I can rip open a wormhole that will get us the hell out of dodge!”

“And we'll land on Earth?” Rick was trying to unscrew the side of the case, but his hands were shaking too much to line up the screwdriver and the screwhead.

“Probably. There's a fifty-fifty chance we'll end up creating a black hole instead.”

“I-I don't like those odds, Rick,” said Morty, glancing at the charging mega-laser. The spaceship formation was starting to warp the light of the stars behind it, the points of light wavering like the horizon on a hot day. “Couldn't we just use the portal gun?”

“I'm not leaving the ship, Morty, do you know how—urrp—how many lightbulbs I had to break to get a hold of this much tungsten?” As a massive ball of light gathered at the epicenter of the spiraling ships, Rick was still fumbling at the side of the case.

“Well, fuck the ship, Rick! I'm taking matters into my own hands!” Morty grabbed the portal gun from Rick's labcoat pocket and shot open a portal. He grabbed Rick by the shoulders and pulled him through the green void, moments before a wall of light vaporized the entire asteroid belt.  
  
***

With an anti-climactic raspberry, the ship appeared a foot above the driveway, falling down the rest of the way with a clunk. The door cracked open, and the two fell out into a heap. Old Mrs. Johnson paused from watering her ficus to wave hi at the old man and boy who had just popped out of a wormhole.

“Oh my god, Rick, we made it, I thought we were going to die, I'm never leaving Earth again,” Morty babbled while clutching Rick's torso. Rick's heartbeat was ringing in his ears, 200 beats per minute. He took a deep breath and a swig of booze.

“Have a little faith in your grandpa, Morty, I knew we were gonna—urrp—gonna beat the odds.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever. If we didn't, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.”

“Ohh, Rick, you're awful.” Morty buried his face in Rick's labcoat, inhaling deeply. As if the upper body hug wasn't enough, Morty threaded his legs through Rick's, pressing his thigh into his crotch. Rick might have been willing to humor his grandson's clinginess if he hadn't felt something hard poking into his hip. Either Morty had taken to carrying a Class E laser pistol in his pocket, or he was packing heat of a different kind.

“Okay, that's enough hugging for today.” Rick wiggled out of Morty's grasp, stood up, and tried to brush away the tactile memory of his grandson's boner. Failing at that, he took another swig from his flask. “Wonder what Beth's cooking for dinner. Near death exp—urrp—eriences always do wonders for my appetite.”

| 

***

Rick and Morty tumbled out onto the driveway, the two of them the only anomalous part of a perfect suburbia. Old Mrs. Johnson paused from watering her bushes to wave hi at the old man and boy who had just popped out of a green portal. A lazy afternoon sun cast slanted shadows across the cracked concrete.

Rick lay slack in shock for only a moment before jack-knifing upwards.

“The ship! Goddamnit Morty, give me the portal gun!”

“Y-you're crazy, Rick, you can't go back there. The ship's vaporized by now!”

Rick lunged for the gun in Morty's hand. The two wrestled back and forth on the driveway, while a woman walked a dog past them on the sidewalk and tried hard to ignore the fighting males.

Morty pinned Rick's hands above his head, and paused, panting. Rick's heartbeat hammered through his wrists, fast and fluttering like a hummingbird's wingbeats. If Morty had been a real threat, Rick would have wrapped his legs around Morty's torso and wrenched him off. But instead, Rick tilted his head back and to the side, exposing his neck. Wait, was he … blushing?

“Uh, Morty, if we're going to do this, we should go inside,” Rick muttered. Morty wasn't sure how to react to that statement, but Rick didn't seem that eager to portal himself into the path of a laser anymore, so Morty let go of his wrists. He stood up, tossing the portal gun onto his stomach. Rick looked surprised, but pocketed the gun.

“Sorry about the ship, Rick.” Morty reached out a hand to help Rick up.

“Well, it was a piece of trash. And I mean that literally, parts of it came from an old lawnmower and also the motorcycle Jerry bought when he was—urrp—going through that midlife crisis. I've been meaning to upgrade for a while.” Rick dusted his pants.

“Oh, uh, m-maybe I could help you with that? I mean, if you don't think I'll mess it up.”

“Whatever. Let's go get some dinner, I'm crashing hard.”


	3. Playing with Fire

C-136 | B-290  
---|---  
  
“Wow, you really outdid yourself with dinner today, Beth,” said Rick as he sat down at the dining room table.

“Oh, it's no big deal, Dad,” said Beth, as she slid the biggest, juiciest chicken thigh onto his plate.“I just love to see you—I mean everyone—eating as one happy family. So, how was your day?”

“Made some energy—urrp—crystals, went off-planet, blew up a government, you know, the usual,” said Rick.

“Sounds like you've had a busy day.”

“Aren't you going to ask me how my day went?” Jerry interjected. Beth's smile became a tight-lipped line.

“Well, I might if I thought you had done something interesting.”

“Hey, I submitted my resume ten times today!”

“To the same company website?” Beth snorted into her rosé.

“Well, it was taking a really long time to load—”

Rick let the familiar argument become white noise. He turned his attention to more important things, like dinner. His plate was divided into stolid, middle-class-suburbian thirds of protein, peas, and potatoes. What Rick appreciated the most about Beth's cooking wasn't the taste or the presentation. It was the utter banal predictability. No need to worry about compatible biochemistries or eating around the parasitic larva. Yup, there was nothing in the galaxy like Beth's cooking. Predictable. Safe. And utterly bland.

“Pass the—“ The bottle of tabasco was pushed into his hand before he could even finish his sentence. “Uhh, thanks Morty.” Morty beamed.

“Haha, it's no problem, Rick. Do you need anything else? Salt? Pepper? 'Mayo'?” said Morty, with air quotes around the last word.

“No, I'm good, Morty, you don't have to hover like that.”

“Okay, Rick!” Morty chirped. The boy stabbed at his plate, but kept one eye expectantly on Rick, as if he might bark out another command at any moment. Maybe he should look into making more condiment passing robots. Hmm, was it better to make one robot per condiment, or to make a generalized object-passer? As Rick thought, he directed a fork full of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

Rick bit down hard on bare metal. The stainless steel jarred against his incisors, chipping off a piece of enamel.

“Ow! Motherfucker!” Rick spit out a bloody tooth shard.

“Oh my god,” said Summer. “Grandpa Rick, you're bleeding all over the table!”

“What's going on, Rick?” said Morty.

“It looks like we've got an inter-dimensional food thief on our hands.”

“Oh no, no, no. Nobody is taking my food!” said Jerry, sticking an entire chicken leg in his mouth. He then proceeded to choke. Beth sighed, and got up to apply the Heimlich maneuver to her husband's stomach.

“Gotta act fast before the thief strikes again.” Rick snatched away the plate in front of Morty and fiddled around in his pocket.

“What are you doing with my food, Rick?”

“If some asshole thinks he can juuust waltz into my universe and take my shit, this'll change his mind.” Rick pulled out a vial of reddish-brown liquid from his pocket. “Extract of Srixxian peppers, the spiciest substance in the universe. Word from the wise: if you're ever caught smuggling fractal dust on the planet Strix, and they give you the choice between a drop on the balls or jail, pick jail. At least you'll be able to jerk it as a consolation prize.” Rick added a couple of drops to the mashed potatoes and mixed them in until they were imperceptible.

Rick placed the dish back in front of Morty. Sure enough, the food disappeared again. “Ha! Took the bait! Wish I could see the look on his face when he gets a mouthful of that stuff!”

Now that the immediate crisis was over, Rick squeezed dental glue onto the tooth shard and pressed it back in his mouth. There. That ought to last a couple more years. The chicken leg flew out of Jerry's esophagus with a pop, and Beth sat back down. Morty fixed himself another plate of dinner, and Summer went back to sexting her boyfriend.

Dinner was half-way over before the stolen food returned with a splat to Morty's plate.

“I guess someone got more than they bargained for,” crowed Rick. “Can't take the heat, get out of my kitchen.”

“Uhh, Rick, why is my plate beeping?”

The mashed potatoes exploded, flinging white mush all over the room.

“Motherfucker!” yelled Rick as his skin dissolved.

| 

Morty opened the fridge to reveal a sad collection of crusty sauce stains, limp celery, and bottles of salad dressing. A wave of cold air poured onto his head from Rick cracking open the freezer door. True to Beth's word, there was indeed a frozen pizza inside, solid as a hockey puck.

“Uhrg, if there's one down—urrp—side to the divorce, it's that Beth hasn't been cooking.” Rick dropped the pizza, which shattered into doughy chunks.

“Rick! That was our only food!”

“I wouldn't feed that crap to Jerry. Just use the Food Materializer, Morty.”

“The wha?”

“The Food Materializer, you know, that thing that materializes food.” Rick gestured at an appliance on the countertop that looked like a cross between a microwave and a satellite dish. “I thought I already showed you how to use it.”

“Uhh, I forgot.”

“Well, I'll show you again, but this is the last time. Write it down if you have to.” Rick put an empty plate in the Food Materializer and entered some digits with the touchpad. He then pressed the start button with a flourish. “And awayyy we go!”

The Food Materializer's dish glowed. Pulses of light illuminated the microwave box from the inside. When the bell dinged, Rick pulled out a plate of roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and peas, slightly disheveled but still appetizing.

“Voila! A home-cooked meal!”

Any worries Morty had about the chemical compatibility or radiation level of the food were erased when the rich, meaty scent wafted past his nose. His stomach gurgled, reminding him that he had skipped lunch. Morty grabbed for the plate, but Rick whisked it up, out of reach.

“Nuh uh uh, if you don't work, you don't eat.” Rick said, his mouth already full of chicken. Pressing a couple of buttons hardly counted as work, but Morty rolled his eyes and did as he was told.

“So, do I tell the Food Materializer what I want or ...”

“No, it should already be set.” Morty pushed the button and waited. This time, he had to wait an agonizing two minutes, swallowing his own saliva, before a plate of food finally appeared.

“This is amazing, Rick, i-it looks just like something Mom would make.” Morty wiped dry a knife and fork from the overflowing dishwasher and joined Rick at the table. “I can't believe you've been keeping this to yourself, you could solve world hunger and win a Nobel!” Rick smirked.

“Well, it's like I—urrp—always say, Morty. Give a man a meal, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to steal food from another universe, and he'll eat for the rest of his life!” The forkful of mashed potatoes that had been halfway to Morty's mouth dropped back onto the plate.

“Wait, I-I thought this thing was actually making the food!”

“It's a Food Materializer, Morty, not a Matter Generator. D-do you have any idea how much energy it takes to make matter from scratch? And-and-and it's even harder to arrange the atoms into something tasty. So unless you want to eat carbon dust, Morty, stealing food from another universe is a better idea all around.”

“That's, that's terrible, Rick, what if they really needed this food?”

“More than you do right now?” Morty's stomach growled. “The only dimension that matters is the one we're in right now.”

“Fine, Rick, fine. At least tell me who we took this food from.”

“Wow, Morty, where'd you find the backbone you shoved up your ass? All you gotta know is I got it from a real asshole. Now shut up and eat.” Pouting, Morty shoved the interrupted forkful back into his mouth.

The moment his tongue came into contact with the food, his mouth lit on fire. His taste buds burst in individual firecrackers of pain. A warm liquid he could feel but no longer taste filled his mouth. When Morty screamed, a stream of blood ran down his chin, marking a patch of red on his t-shirt.

“Shit, hold on, Morty!” Rick reached into his labcoat and pulled out a sealed vial of some bluish liquid. Flipping the cap off with his thumb, Rick craned the boy's head back and poured the contents into his mouth. The foaming liquid coated his blistered skin with a soothing balm.

_What's happening_ , Morty tried to say, but all that came out of his mouth was a gurgle of bloody foam.

“Don't try to talk, Morty, I'll take care of this. That motherfucker isn't gonna know what hit him.” Rick dropped a beeping metal orb in the mashed potatoes and flung the plate back into the microwave. He pressed another button, and the food returned to its home universe.

“You screw with my Morty, you're gonna get fucked!”  
  
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are really starting to heat up, huh?
> 
> Next chapter contains actual R/M content! Finally!
> 
> Thanks to Kous for beta-ing


	4. After-Credit Special

C-136 | B-290  
---|---  
  
“Gee, it sure was convenient you had so much Skin-Graft-in-a-Can ™ lying around, Rick,” said Morty. The semi-nude boy prodded the newly-formed skin on his cheek.

“That stuff's part of every first-aid kit off-planet, Morty,” said Rick, who had taken off his lab coat. Despite the painful, blistered skin on his palms, he grabbed Morty's wrist before the boy could ruin his face. “I-if you keep picking, you'll turn into Leatherface.”

“O-okay, Rick.” Morty diligently sat on his hands.

“Now, spray me down, Summer.” Rick held out his hands expectantly.

“Eww, you can't just show me your gross burnt skin, that's like, a human rights violation or something.” Turning her head in disgust, Summer pointed the aerosol in Rick's vague direction.

When the mashed potatoes tainted with Srixxian pepper extract had exploded, most of the corrosive potatoes had been caught by Rick's lab coat, with only a few flecks coming into contact with his face. What were a few more liverspots to an 80-year-old man, anyway? But Morty had been right at the center of the explosion and his face and torso were splattered by the caustic potatoes. Acting on panic and experience, Rick scooped up the boy and carried him to the bathroom. Rick had ripped off his yellow shirt, turned on the shower, and scrubbed off the potatoes with his bare hands. He could still remember peeling rubbery sheets of skin off of Morty's face, the boy's screams as he kept scraping the raw flesh until he was sure that all the extract had been washed off.

“Morty, go grab my flask and pour it into my mouth. I-I burned my hands washing your stupid fucking face, so y-you owe me.”

Just then, Beth walked into the garage, dragging a sniffling Jerry in with a rubber-gloved hand. Jerry hid his cheek with his hands, like he was an opera phantom.

“Dad, I'm done washing Jerry's face,” she said. “Now what?”

“We're all out of skin spray, Rick,” said Summer, shaking the empty can.

“Woah, tough luck, Jerry,” said Rick. “Better take him to the—urrp—hospital before he gets infected.”

“Well, there goes my whole night,” sighed Beth. “And I was planning on finishing that romance novel.” She eyed Rick's flask.

“Tell you what, take the ship, it has auto-pilot.” Rick pointed to the pocket where his keys were. “O-open a bottle of wine, make a date out of it.”

“You're finally letting me drive the ship? Oh, thank you Dad!” Beth fetched the keys and pecked Rick on the cheek, all disappointment forgotten. Rick commanded the ship to open the driver-side door and beckoned her inside like a chauffeur. While he showed his daughter how to drive the ship, he left Jerry to struggle with his door. After several minutes of fruitless tugging, Morty came to his aid, wiggling the handle in an arcane and practiced way to get it to open.

“The left blinker's burnt out, so you're gonna want to honk a lot to be safe. Oh, and don't forget to swap out the license plate every hundred light years!” Rick yelled a last few instructions to the ship as it flew into the horizon.

“Mom and Dad are gone, yes! Now I can blast the uncensored versions of all my fave jams!” Summer ran up to her room, a noise-complaint in the making. That left just Rick and Morty in the garage.

“So, it looks like it's just you and me, Morty, Rick and Morty, alone together. You thinking what I'm thinking?” Rick waggled his monobrow.

“Y-yeah!” Morty closed his eyes and balanced on the balls of his feet to lift his face closer to Rick's.

“Movie marathon!” shouted Rick. Morty's eyes popped open again.

“Oh, uh, sure,” he said in a deflated tone. “That, that could be fun too.”

“Well, what did you have in mind, Morty?” The boy blushed.

“I-it's nothing, Rick! We can do whatever you want! I-I'll make us some popcorn!” Morty ran off to the kitchen.

While Morty shoved every bag of popcorn into the microwave, Rick set up the TV room for their marathon, although it was difficult to plug in the wires with only his mouth and elbows as manipulators. He had just managed to turn the TV to the season finale of “The Days and Nights of Mrs. Pancakes” when Morty returned from the kitchen, arms full of popcorn and all the booze in the house.

“Aw yeah, you know how to par-tay. Pour some that shit in my mouth, Morty.”

“Sure thing, Rick.” Morty picked up a bottle of amber liquor.

“Oh, uhh, start me off with a beer, I wanna see how Mrs. Pancakes deals with this love triangle.”

“Sorry!” Morty put down the bottle and cracked open a Corona. Rick guzzled the ice-cold stream. When he had had enough, he nodded to Morty, who took a swig of his own before setting it down. Then Morty raised a scoop of popcorn to his mouth for Rick to graze on. A nice gesture, even if it did make him feel like a horse.

The show turned out more predictable than he expected. Obviously, Ms. Pancakes was going to end up cheating on her attractive-but-distant husband with the mysterious cop with a dark past. The entire season had taken a downturn after the lead writer was fired for tweeting a picture of his dick to the entire internet instead of only the intern he was harassing. Why was he even watching this crap when he could be pushing the limits of science with his new power crystals?

A warm weight on Rick's shoulder reminded him why. Morty was snuggled into Rick's side, his curly hair brushing against Rick's chin. Rick was tempted to pet his head, but couldn't risk messing up his healing hands.

“Getting awfully cuddly, huh, Morty?”

“I'm cold, Rick. I-I can't put a shirt on 'cause it might mess up my face.” Morty looked up with wide-eyes, like a puppy begging for scraps at the table.

“Y-you needy little shit.” Rick rolled his eyes, but draped an arm around Morty's shoulder anyway. The boy shivered, and shuffled the bowl of popcorn on his lap.

“— _You're never around, it's almost like you're avoiding me!”_ Ms. Pancake said on TV.

***

| 

“Gee, it sure was convenient you had that immunocompatible organ tree growing in the basement, Rick,” said Morty, pinching his newly-transplanted tongue. After Rick had enacted his revenge on the other universe for daring to hurt his Morty, he rushed the kid to the garage for emergency surgery. Morty's mouth had been injected with a local anesthetic, but he had been conscious for the entire procedure. The aftertaste of blood and sloughed skin still lingered in his mouth.

“Organ tree, right, it totally wasn't a failed cloning experiment or anything.” Rick peeled his bloody gloves into the trash can. “How's the mouth?”

“It's a little sore, but it feels okay.” Whatever oral anesthetic Rick had used wore off quickly.

“Uh huh. I should run some tests, you know, to see if everything's connected up right.” Rick leaned towards Morty, head tilted towards the side, lips puckered as if to kiss.

“Haha, good one, Rick,” Morty said, pushing away Rick's face. The boy slipped off the countertop, feet crunching the discarded piles of broken crystals. “I'm gonna see if there's anything in the kitchen I can eat, without, you know, stealing from another dimension.”

“Well, I'll just … be in the TV room,” said Rick. Morty caught a glimpse of Rick standing, lost, towering above glittering crystal trash like a giant amongst fallen skyscrapers.

Once in the kitchen, Morty hopped onto the counter to plumb the cabinets. An opened box of stale saltine crackers, a moth-infested box of instant mashed potatoes, and way in the back, a box of popcorn. Corn was a grain, right? So a bunch of popcorn was totally the same as a bowl of rice.

Morty popped the packages into the microwave. Behind the rat-a-tat of the exploding kernels, Morty heard slaps and heated arguments from the TV. When the popcorn was done, he dumped all the bags into a metal bowl and moved to the TV room. Rick was sprawled across the couch, chugging from a tinted bottle. Morty sat on the other side.

“What are you watching, Rick?”

“It's the season finale of 'The Life and Times of Mr. Poundcake.” One of his pockets buzzed, and Rick pulled out his cellphone. “Hey, Summer just texted. She says she's on a date with some guy named Adrian and won't be back tonight. Looks like tiger's getting some tail.”

“Oh man, what if she gets pregnant or something, I-I don't want Summer to end up like Mom.” Rick shrugged and took a swig from his bottle.

“Not gonna—urrp—happen, at least not this month.”

“Why?”

“I stole some eggs from her when she was sleeping.”

“Geez Rick, don't you think that violates some kind of medical ethics?”

“Can't find the secret to immortality without cracking a few fertilized eggs, Mo-oo-orty.”

“B-but you should have at least asked her first, what if she didn't want you taking them?”

“Wow, you're sure riding my ass hard on this one, Morty. You're gonna make out big if I succeed. I-I wasn't joking when I said Rick and Morty, hundred years.” Rick wiped his mouth of clear liquid. “Anyway, this means it's just you and me in the house tonight.” Rick slid his arm around Morty and pulled him close. “We can do whatever we want.” He waggled his monobrow.

“Oooh, can we make it a marathon?”

“I'll keep you up all night, baby.” Rick winked.

“— _In the end, you'll come crawling back to me. I'm your everything,”_ threatened Mr. Poundcake on TV.

***  
  
The two of them polished off the beer, and Morty cracked open a bottle of Jameson. Rick hadn't intended on getting wasted tonight, but ehh, he wasn't going to turn away hard liquor. After Morty finished feeding Rick the booze, the boy take a swig from the bottle as well. Rick was astonished to see Morty chug a good inch without sputtering at all.

“Heh, where'd you learn to drink like that?”

“From you.” Morty licked his lips.

“Oh.” That statement … hurt, more than he was expecting it to. “Gimme another pull.”

By the time the show ended, Rick had sunk into a boozy haze. His limbs felt like they were trapped in tar: heavy, warm. Morty, despite his apparent drinking experience, still couldn't hold his liquor. He had melted into a sleepy puddle soaking into Rick's shirt.

“That sure was—urrp—something, huh, Morty? You know, I thought I had this episode in the bag, but I never saw the evil twin coming.”

“Yeah—hic—I-I liked the part when she, when she,” Morty trailed off for a moment, “uhh, what are we watching again?” He giggled, and pressed his cheek into Rick's chest.

Rick examined his hand. No peeling or sloughing, color normal. He pinched his thumb and forefinger together. The blood returned quickly to the squeezed-white flesh. The skin graft was good to go.

“Okay, Morty, your face should be fine. I-it's time for you to put on some goddamn clothes and go to bed.”

“B-but it's only eleven, I'm fine, I-I can keep, keep going,” Morty slurred.

“Morty, you've been drooling on my chest for the past half-hour.” Rick shoved Morty off his body, perhaps a little too hard. Morty tipped over, falling against the couch cushion. “Go to bed, Morty, you're drunk.”

Morty sat up quietly, hands clenched, head bowed. He inhaled deeply. Rick prepared to ignore whatever excuse the boy could come up with and drag him bodily up the stairs.

“Rick, are you mad at me?” A comeback about Morty's low tolerance died on Rick's lips.

“What?”

“Y-you're not—you haven't—y-you've been kind of distant today.” That was a real non-sequitur right after a cuddle puddle.

“Oh, that was probably the 'phetamines. Nothing better for keeping focus.”

“No, I mean, well, y-you're not strung out right now, right? Y-You're not a-as nice as you usually are.”

Rick Sanchez had been called many things over the years, but “nice”? He had a fucking reputation to maintain.

“W-Whatdya want from me, Morty, a tug on the dick? You want me to pat your head and call you a good boy? God, Morty, when did you get so clingy?”

“F-forget it, Rick,” sniffed Morty. “I'm going to bed, just like you w-wanted.” Morty wiped his eyes and turned to go. Had Rick been too harsh? He was just spewing drunken bullshit like always.

“Wait!” Rick grabbed Morty's arm before he escaped his reach. “I-” Rick was not drunk enough to say that he needed Morty, that he made life bearable. “I'm not mad at you.”

“Really?” Morty sniffed.

“Yeah, you-you really did me a solid today. Couldn't have made so many power crystals without you. You're a good helper.”

“Y-you really think so, Rick?”

“Don't let it get to your head. You're just the same ag-aggra-pain in the ass as you always are.” Rick lifted up a bottle. But before he could wash the taste of that confession out of his mouth, Morty grabbed the glass neck, pushing his hand to the side. The boy straddled his grandfather, looking at him with a disturbing hunger.

“Morty, wha—”

“Shh.” Morty placed a finger on Rick's dry lips. “W-we still have the after-credit special.” Rick's limbs were trapped, encased in invisible plasticine. His mouth was dry. The back of his head pressed into the couch but he could not avoid Morty's implacable approach. Halve the distance each heartbeat. If only Zeno's paradox were true.

Their lips touched.

A reflex. Grip the bottle. Swing up. The crack of glass against temple. The thump of a body hitting the ground.

Rick pulled his limbs free of his sucking fear, jerked to his feet, towered above the groaning figure.

“You. You're not my Morty.”

| 

The problem with eating popcorn for dinner was that Morty's mouth was starting to feel like a winter road: cracked and encrusted with salt. He wanted a glass of water, but he was trapped by the comforting weight of Rick's arm.

“Rick, let go, I want to get some water.”

“But, but you're gonna miss the best part! Mr. Poundcake's getting ready to lay down a smackdown. Here, drink this.” Rick shoved his bottle in Morty's face. Even the fumes made his eyes water.

“Jesus, what is this, battery acid?”

“The usual, just pure—urrp—pure ethanol I whipped up in the lab.” Rick shook the half-empty bottle. “Wha-what's the matter, scared?” he leered.

“Uhrg, give me that.” Morty snatched the bottle and swallowed a mouthful. When the vapors hit the back of his throat, he coughed, sputtering. Rick laughed, and thumped his back.

“Went down the wrong pipe?” Morty glared.

“Well, sorry for not being a-an alcoholic, Rick.” He shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth to wash out the taste, but the salt was painful. Morty held up the bottle and sipped again. This time, he only sputtered a little.

“Thaaats my boy,” said Rick, ruffling Morty's hair. Morty flushed, from both booze and praise.

The drama went from mellow to bad. This wasn't his type of show at all. Too much drama, not enough explosions. They didn't even have the decency to show the sex scenes. Morty found himself watching Rick more than the TV. The crow of triumph when Rick guessed that the mysterious girl on the periphery of the cast was actually Mr. Poundcake's bastard daughter. His excited leg slap when he managed to guess the lines half-a-second before the characters did.

Somehow, Rick's arm had worked its way downward from his shoulder to his middle. His long fingers twitched against Morty's leftover baby-fat. Despite his half-drunken meltiness, Morty tensed when Rick's fingers slid under his shirt. Morty glanced up at Rick's face, but the old man was fully focused on the TV. It was just a reflex, right? Rick's restless hands just needed something to squish.

Morty forced himself to relax. He took another swig of booze, which helped. He tried to refocus on the show, but he couldn't ignore the light trace of Rick's hands, especially they started flipping the elastic of his underwear. Did Rick know what he was doing?

Morty placed the popcorn bowl between his legs to hide his growing erection. While pretending to pick out the last fluffy bits in the kernel dregs, he ground the bowl down into his crotch to give his dick some surreptitious friction and had to stifle a moan.

Fortunately, the show was just ending. As the credits rolled, Rick stretched his arms, removing the source of Morty's awkward arousal.

“That, that was something, all right,” Rick stumbled through his words. “I-I knew the gardener had some kinda-some kinda funny business going on, what with all the sneaking around and-and repotting. But damn, I didn't-I didn't see that IED coming!”

“Haha, yeah, Rick, I didn't think the wedding would end with that kind of bang.” Morty's dick pulsed at that innuendo. Rick flicked his eyes down. Oh god, did he notice?

“M-Morty, you want the last bit?” said Rick, pressing the rim of the bottle into Morty's cheek.

“N-no, Rick, I'm fine,” he squeaked.

“Suit yourself.” Rick tightened his grip around the end of the bottle, running his thumb unnecessarily around the rim. He lifted the bottle to his mouth and chugged the remainder of the booze. When the bottle emptied, he licked the rim to extract the last few drops. Then he wrapped his lips around the rim and sucked, his cheeks hollowing with negative pressure. Rick shot Morty a lidded glance out the corner of his eye.

Morty stared with mingled fascination and disgust. Did Rick-did Rick just fake a blow job in front of him? A terrible part of Morty's brain was imagining what it would feel like if it was his dick instead of a glass bottle in Rick's mouth.

“Like what you see, Morty?” Rick smirked. Retreat! Retreat!

“Rick, I-I'm going to bed.” He just wanted to jerk off and not think about whether his grandfather was intentionally or unintentionally hitting on him. Hands hiding his erection, he bolted.

Rick lunged for his arm, catching it, but falling into the cushions with a smack in the process.

“Let go of me, Rick, I wanna go,” Morty said with a hint of fear.

“Wait, wh-what's wrong, Morty?” Rick's voice was strangely wobbly, even for a drunk Rick.

“I-I dunno, you're acting kinda weird, Rick.” Morty turned around slowly.

For once, Morty towered above Rick. The old man had fallen across the cushions, his body taking up the entire length of the couch. His head tilted up, his eyes worshipful, as if he was a paralyzed man laying at the feet of a prophet.

“What did I do wrong?” Rick whispered in the tone of someone placating divine rage. He looked up at Morty through his long, sparse lashes.

“You touched me-”

Rick let go of his arm like it was burning hot.

“I-I'm sorry Morty, I'll leave, I won't ever touch you again-”

“No, that-that's not what I want.” How could he explain that Rick's touch felt so good that it was bad? That he'd drink an entire handle just to hear Rick say his name with pride?

“What do you want, Morty?” That question was asked without the rhetorical sharpness that it usually carried, but Morty still felt like a pop quiz had just been sprung on him.

“I-” Morty hated being put on the spot. He could feel his concentration scattering, like a paintbrush being pressed into a hard surface. Morty's eyes darted to the bottles that belonged in recycling, the popcorn bowl that he really ought to wash before going to bed. No! No distractions! He needed to refocus on Rick.

Rick's hair was awfully fluffy. Morty had always thought it would be soft, like cotton candy, but never had a chance to find out because he wasn't a creeper. He placed his hand next to Rick's head, but hesitated before he could make contact.

Rick leaned into his hand, like a cat. He sighed as Morty smoothed down his crazy mane. It turned out that Rick's hair was more brittle wire than silk. Despite how tentatively gentle his touch was, blue strands broke off in his hand. At least Rick seemed to enjoy it. He closed his eyes as Morty rubbed his thumb into the thin, shiny skin of Rick's bald spot.

He'd flattened out Rick's spikes quite a bit. Morty ran his fingers through his hair to fluff them up again. His fingers caught, and Rick's eyes snapped open. Morty had let down his guard and now his boner was right in front of Rick's face. At the sight, Rick's expression turned from beatific to wolfish.

“Heh, I guess I'm doing something right.” And Rick nuzzled into Morty's crotch.

A reflex. Grip the hair. Swing up the knee. The crunch of nasal bones fracturing.

Morty dropped the body onto the ground, heartbeat pounding in his ears. As the lanky figure groaned and clutched its face, he picked up the discarded bottle, ready to fight.

“You-you're not my Rick.”  
  
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BET YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING
> 
> Special thanks to KousKousx, dadvans and lemonsweet for beta'ing.


	5. Prisoner's Dilemma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Threatened rape

C-136 | B-290  
---|---  
  
Before the fake Morty could recover, Rick lifted it up by the neck, higher, higher, until it was just barely teetering on its toes.

“Who are you! What the hell did you do to my Morty?” he demanded. Flecks of spittle spewed on the fake's face.

“Oh, oh god, w-what—” The fake's words were cut off by Rick clamping down on its windpipe. It gagged, clawing desperately at Rick's hands, as Rick shook its head back and forth.

“I ask the questions around here! Are you a succubus? A replicant? A cloner-beast? Who sent you?” Rick loosened his hands just enough for the impostor to gasp a few words.

“I-I don't know what you're talking about. I'm your Morty!” Rick laughed bitterly. He should have known that today was too good to be true.

“Oh, you're good all right. You got the body, the stutter, those big ol' dumb eyes. I-I bet you've been spying on me a long time, figuring out my weaknesses. Y-you thought I would let my—urrp—guard down around my grandson a-and then you could seduce the secrets out of ol' 'Slut Sanchez'. But you made a big mistake coming onto me in that shape.” Rick hacked deep in his throat, spitting a thick, phglemmy wad onto the impostor's face. “I would never touch Morty like that.”

Just the thought that someone could pervert his relationship with his grandson filled Rick with rage. Rick slammed the fake's body against the coffee table, making the legs rattle at the cheaply-bolted corners. The fake's eyes unfocused, its fingers twitched weakly. Careful. He had to keep this thing alive until he got answers.

“Now, start talking.”

“Rick,” the fake started, voice trailing off in confusion. Damn but it was good. Rick's stomach lurched from the thought of his real Morty in such pain. Don't think about it. But it was hard with those wide eyes staring into his, looking every inch a scared Morty.

The fake had stopped its useless clawing at the iron clamp of Rick's grip. Instead, it reached towards his face. The lack of oxygen must have been clouding its thoughts, for there was no way Rick was losing an eye to such a slow swipe. When Rick leaned out of the way, the fake ended up curling its hand lightly on Rick's bicep.

“Rick, y-you gotta re-re-mem-remember,” it stuttered through punch-drunk lips. “That night, you, you came to me. You wanted me.”

That night? Did it mean last night, when Rick and his real Morty had gone to Xebular to harvest the crystals? The green tide lapping at the horizon. Meeting the other Rick and Morty.

A horrifying realization crystallized in Rick's mind.

“Shit, I picked up the wrong Morty!” No wonder he'd been acting so off. Rick flinched his hands away from the boy's neck as if it was a hot pipe. The boy gasped and went into a coughing fit.

“Oh my god, Morty B-290, are you all right? Did I hurt you?” As soon as those words left his mouth, Rick wanted to suck them back in. Of course he had hurt the other Morty, considering he had just hit him on the head with a beer bottle and nearly strangled him to death. Rick propped open Morty's eyes, checking for pupil dilation.

“N-no, I'm fine, uhrg, leave me alone.” Morty batted away Rick's hand.

“You are not fine, now come with me.” Rick grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the garage. The boy stumbled forward, barely managing to keep up with Rick's stride. When they entered the garage, Rick picked up Morty by the waist and plopped him on the countertop, then started rifling through the cabinets.

“W-what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I'm doing, Mo—urrp—orty B?” said Rick with an armful of glass vials. “I-I'm making a bruise cream, it'll fix you up real good.” A scoop of sterile petroleum, a jigger of growth hormones, and just a pinch of stem cells. Mix with a finger and the cream was done. “Now hold still.” Morty flinched as Rick's hand touched his neck.

“I said hold still!”

“B-but your hands are cold.” Still, Morty took a deep breath and closed his eyes, holding his hands tightly in his lap. He bit his lip as Rick rubbed the cream all around his neck.

“W-what were you thinking before, when you were all up on me like-like paparazzi? Y-you trying to play gay chicken with grandpa, Morty B?” B-290 Morty might be a cuddly drunk, but he really needed to pick his targets better.

“Me and my Rick do that kinda thing all the time. I-I guess you, your Morty, you're not like that.” Rick's thumb stopped mid-swipe. It all made sense now. B-290 Morty's fawning. His need for physical attention. His drinking.

Rick might have hurt B-290 Morty, but his Rick had hurt him much worse.

“What's wrong, Rick C?” said Morty. Rick shoved the remaining cream into the boy's hands.

“You put on the rest, Morty B.” Rick picked through the pockets of the contaminated lab coat he had left on the bench and pulled out the portal gun.

“W-where are you going?”

“I'm going to have a word with your Rick.” Rick also grabbed a prototype laser pistol off the counter. It was short range, but it would do the trick. “I'll come get you when it's over.”

“Wait, w-what do you mean, wait-”

Ignoring him, Rick shot a portal into the living room of Dimension B-290.

| 

“W-who are you? What did you do to Rick?” Morty shouted at the figure curled between the couch and the coffee table. He smashed the glass bottle on the table, creating a sharp point. Before the fake Rick could recover, Morty pressed the makeshift shiv to his neck, pinning the prone figure with his slight weight.

“Red! Red!” shouted the fake Rick. Despite the blood trickling down from his smashed nose and the sharp glass pointed straight at his throat, he looked more annoyed than afraid. Maybe he was just too drunk to feel pain. “Jesus Christ, you've gotta warn me when you pull this shit. I-I mean, I like it when you take charge a-and really get into it, but this is too much, w-we never even made a safe word.” The fake reached into his lab coat, but Morty pressed the makeshift shiv to his neck.

“K-keep your hands w-where I can see them!” Morty commanded with shaky confidence. “Answer my questions!” The fake Rick lay his hands on the sides of his head, palms face up.

“Morty, I-I'm just not feeling this, this roleplay. Lemme just—urrp—jerk you off and we can call it a night, 'kay?” The thought of Rick's wrinkly old hands on his dick was enough to make it shrivel and recoil towards his gut.

“Oh my god, I'm not gonna fuck some kind of robot alien shapeshifter demon that looks like my grandpa! I-if you wanted to seduce me, y-you should have turned into a supermodel, o-or Jessica, even Summer would've been better!”

“Yeesh, sorry for not having tits, Morty.” The fake rolled his eyes. “You weren't, I didn't hear you complaining last night.”

“W-what are you talking about, last night you woke me up and dragged me out on another crazy adventure.” Last night. The planet with the crystal columns. Meeting the other Rick and Morty.

A horrifying realization flickered on in Morty's mind.

“You, you're that other Rick. Last night, on that planet with the crystals-” Rick's eyes widened.

“Wait, you're C-136 Morty? Shit, I-I must have picked up the wrong grandson!” It all clicked. The physical contact. The weirdly submissive behavior. The innuendo.

“Y-you're fucking your Morty! Oh my god, you wanted to fuck me!”

“No! I mean yes, b-but I'm not going to force you, th-that's just sick.”

Morty's vision blurred. His hands shook, the trembling glass point digging a line of red into B-290 Rick's neck. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, faster and faster.

“Morty, listen to me!” Rick's voice sounded over the muffled roar in his head. “You're having a panic attack, just calm down.” Rick cupped Morty's face, but Morty flinched back.

“I can't, Rick!” Morty panted fast and shallow, his lungs struggling for air like the room had just been depressurized. His heart was bursting. He was going to die.

Rick's voice was a lighthouse in a storm.

“Listen to me, Morty, you just gotta breathe. In. Out. In. Out.” Rick's stomach rose and fell, gently rocking Morty up and down.

“I can't-!” The words choked in his throat.

“Yes you can, Morty, you're stronger than this, you're not going to let some, some stupid brain chemistry win. Deep breaths, Morty, I believe in you.” Somehow, those words let Morty wrest control of his fluttering diaphragm. He sucked in air until his belly was stretched taut.

“That's it, you're doing so good,” Rick mumbled. “Now let it all out.” Morty exhaled, all his anxious energy escaping with his breath. He dropped his glass shiv, which rolled under the table. Deflated, he collapsed onto Rick's chest.

“There you go. You—urrp—made it, dawg,” Rick belched comfortingly in Morty's ear. “Now let's get you back to your home universe.” Morty sat up weakly. Rick clamped his hands around Morty's waist to move him off, only for Morty to push them away.

“No! I mean, uhh, I can get off myself.” Pushing off Rick's chest, Morty stood up. Below him, Rick grabbed at the couch cushion, looking for leverage to push himself up. The front of his teal shirt was stained red from blood.

“Here.” Morty offered a hand to Rick, who used it to pull himself up. Rick rocked forward onto his feet but overbalanced, placing a hand on Morty's shoulder to catch himself.

“Uhrg, I'm too drunk for this shit.” Rick's broken nose loomed right in front of Morty's face.  
  
| 

Just then, a green portal opened on the wall behind B-290 Rick and C-136 Morty. Out stepped C-136 Rick minus his usual lab coat, portal gun in one hand, laser gun in the other. From his vantage point, all he could see was a balding head bobbing in front of his Morty's face.

“Go to hell, Morty-fucker!” C-136 Rick snarled, aiming the gun at the other Rick's torso. His target whipped his head around, but it was too late to dodge the bolt. But before C-136 pulled the trigger, he was tackled from behind by the shirtless B-290 Morty that had leapt through the portal right before it closed. The laser blast landed wild, singing a black spot onto the ceiling.

“No, stop, don't kill my Rick!” The Morty looped his arms around the attacking Rick's neck, who tried to shake him off. As Rick bucked like an angry bull, the Morty hung on tenaciously, his body rag-dolling in the air.

“T-this is for your own good, Morty B. You're a good Morty, you deserve better than this fucking rapist pedo.” Even with the Morty on his back trying to wrest his gun out of his hands, still C-136 Rick aimed towards B-290 Rick.

“I-I should have known you'd come back for more, you greedy bastard,” growled B-290 Rick. “First the crystals, now my Morty. Well, shoot me if you can, but try not to miss!” Before C-136 Morty could join his double in trying to disarm his Rick, B-290 grabbed the boy's arms and pinned them behind his back. He hunkered down behind the boy's smaller frame, using the boy as a human shield.

“Get your hands off him, Morty-fucker!”

“Rick, it's okay!” called C-136 Morty. “He's-” A hand clamped around his mouth, muffling his words.

C-136 Rick grabbed B-290 Morty's wrists, pulled them apart to break the boy's grip, and wrestled the boy into a one-armed chokehold.

“If you don't let go of my Morty,” C-136 Rick pointed his gun at his hostage's head, “I'll shoot.”

“You're not going to—urrp—kill my Morty,” B-290 Rick scoffed, “not if you were going to blow my brains out for touching him.”

“You're right,” said C-136 Rick. He turned the gun away and B-290 Morty breathed a sigh of relief, which turned into a yelp of panic as Rick shot the ground between his feet. “But you know just as well as I do where to shoot to hurt. M-maybe I'll start at the toes. This little piggy went to market-”

“Y-you bastard!” B-290 Rick's grip tightened around his hostage's wrists, making him cry out.

“Nuh, uh, uh,” said C-136 Rick, casually pressing the hot metal tip of the laser gun to his own hostage's cheek. The flesh sizzled on contact. B-290 Morty's eyes watered. “Let go of him.”

Glaring defiance, B-290 Rick released C-136 Morty's mouth.

“Thaaats it, Ricky C. Be a good boy and give him to me.” But instead of letting go of C-136 Morty's arms, B-290 Rick grabbed the boy's hair, tilted his head to the side, and, without breaking eye contact, licked a trail up the exposed neck. C-136 Morty jerked at the touch like it was the jolt of a cattle prod.

“No! Stop! Oh god, help me, Rick!” the boy screamed. He thrashed, wrenching his torso from side to side in an attempt to break free. Though Rick's grip remained iron, he was thrown off balance, pitching forward and crushing Morty underneath him. Morty whimpered as Rick pressed his face into the carpet.

“What was that you called me?” said B-290 Rick with a deranged grin. “Morty-fucker?”

“Don't you dare touch him!” C-136 Rick's hands trembled. “I-I'm going to shoot!” He tilted up the gun until it contacted the back of his hostage's ear.

“Oh god, Rick, help!” cried B-290 Morty. “I-I don't want a gauge! Please, j-just let the other Morty go!”

“Gimme my Morty and this can all end,” said B-290 Rick. He wrenched up C-136 Morty's head, forcing his Rick to stare at his tear-soaked face.

“Please, Rick, just give him his Morty back,” begged C-136 Morty. His feet pawed at the carpet, but weakly, too weakly to escape. “I-I don't want this, nobody wants this, just stop,” he sobbed.

“Fine. Lets just get this over with,” scowled C-136 Rick.

“No funny business. Drop the gun,” demanded B-290 Rick. The gun fell to the carpet. “Kick it away.” C-136 Rick scowled, and nudged the gun with his foot. “Further, where you can't reach it.” C-136 Rick kicked the gun hard enough for it to bounce off the wall.

“All right you, you Morty-fucking piece of shit, you gonna micromanage this all night or are we gonna trade?” With a grunt, B-290 Rick lurched to his feet, practically holding up his sobbing hostage by his hair. The two Ricks approached each other, Mortys facing forward. When they were two paces away from each other, they paused.

“On the count of three. One. Two. Three!” Both Ricks pushed their Mortys towards each other, then dove for the gun.

“You dirty double-crosser!” shouted one Rick as the two tussled.

“Takes one to know one, asshole!” shouted the other. The Ricks rolled around, each clutching the gun's handle while the Mortys clung to each other. The Ricks fought brutally, using every dirty trick they knew: biting, hair-pulling, eye-gouging, ball-kicking. Finally, C-136 smashed his forehead into B-290's already-broken nose, distracting him enough to kick him off and claim the gun. A smear of red painted the victor's forehead, dying his monobrow bloody. He aimed the gun at the other's head.

“Eat photons, Morty-fucker!” C-136 shouted. He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

C-136 pulled the trigger a few more times, but the gun clicked uselessly.

“Ha!” crowed B-290, “What's the matter, forgot to charge your gun?”

“Fuck you, it was working fine before. It must have gotten knocked—urrp—around when we were fighting.” C-136 Rick threw away the useless hunk of metal. “Well, I don't need technology to kick your ass!”

“But it sure makes things easier!” B-290 grabbed the broken bottle shiv from under the coffee table and kicked up, tackling C-136 backwards and holding the point to C-136's jugular.

“A fucking piece of glass doesn't count as technology!”

“You only say that because you—urrp—don't have one!”

“Well, you probably broke it by accident-”

“Uhh, Ricks?” interrupted a Morty. “What does it mean if a laser gun's smoking?”

“Well, it could be a short in the circuit-” grunted C-136 Rick as he grabbed the other Rick's wrist to force the glass point away from his neck.

“Or a crack in the laser medium-” said B-290 Rick as he unexpectedly let go of the glass point to throw C-136 Rick off balance.

“A battery leak-”

“Poor sodering-”

“Either way, it'll lead to a runaway feedback loop creating excessive heat buildup and gaseous expansion.”

“Uhh, Ricks?”

Their eyes followed the thin gray trail of smoke down to the smoking gun.

“Oh fuck, it's gonna blow!” The Ricks broke apart, hurtling into action. C-136 Rick scooped up his Morty and deposited him behind the couch, where he would be safe. But B-290 Rick ran towards the unstable laser gun instead.

“What the fuck are you doing, the gun could blow at any moment and your Morty's still in the open!” shouted C-136 Rick from behind the couch.

“Y-you think a shitty discount couch is gonna stop you from getting shrapnel in your gut?” B-290 Rick pulled out his portal gun and shot a green portal underneath the smoking laser gun. The laser gun was sucked in immediately, along with the coffee table, the broken glass, and all the air in the room.

“You idiot, y-you could have just opened a portal to a desert o-or a Nickelback concert, not the fucking vacuum of outer space!”

“Oh, geez Rick, I-I'm getting sucked in!” B-290 Morty slid towards the portal, his fingernails clawing uselessly on the stubby carpet.

“I got you, Morty!” B-290 Rick grabbed his Morty as the boy flew past him, but the extra momentum caused Rick to start sliding towards the portal as well. The pair screamed as they were drawn inexorably to their deaths.

“Take my hand, Morty-fucker!” C-136 Rick lunged towards them, his Morty holding his ankles with one hand and the couch with the other. B-290 Rick grabbed his hand, and the chain of Ricks and Mortys whipped in the air for a few more heartpounding moments until the portal finally closed.

The four fell to the ground with a thump. C-136 Morty let go of the couch and lay in an exhausted blob on his Rick. B-290 Rick groaned as he unstuck his bleeding face from the carpet.

“Rick!” B-290 Morty propped up his Rick. “Are you okay?”

“What does it look like, Morty, I-I've broken my nose three—urrp—times in the last hour.”

“I'm sorry! I-I-”

“Jesus, calm down Morty. It's not your fault,” said B-290 Rick, shooting a glare at the C-136 pair.

“I'll get the first aid kit!”

“Hold on,” said C-136 Rick, sitting up and holding his Morty protectively, “don't think you can get out of this that easy. Y-you've got some explaining to do, Rick B.” B-290 Rick pulled his Morty in close. His Morty placed a hand on his chest like a damsel on the cover of a pulp novel.

“Well—urrp—you already know everything. Me and my Morty are an 'item.' A-and don't give me that whole spiel about incest a-and age differences, I-I'm not gonna be kink-shamed in my own house.” He took a swig from his flask.

“Yeah, sure, play it up as a 'preference.' As much as I hate getting the, uhrg, authorities involved, I-I'll drag your ass to the Council if I have to. I bet they have some very interesting punishments for Ricks who molest their Mortys.”

“The Council cares less about this kind of stuff than you think. As far as they're concerned, as long as you don't run through too many Mortys, you're good. Now, Rick murdering? That'll—urrp—get your ass dragged through a tribunal for sure.”

“So, you're saying that I'm the criminal here? For trying to look out for Morty-kind? T-that's completely fucked up.”

“Here's how I see things.” B-290 Rick reached into his coat and pulled out a marker. “Let's say this couch cushion is all the Ricks in the multiverse.” He drew a dinner-plate-sized circle. “This is all the Ricks who fuck their Mortys. And this is all the Ricks who actually care about their Mortys,” he said, drawing a golf-ball size circle overlapping the first circle. “This is you,” he said, dotting the far side of the smaller circle, “and this is me,” dotting the intersection of the two circles.

“I know how Venn-diagrams work, I-I'm a man of science too.”

“But look at the relative sizes. A Rickless Morty is free game for any old Rick to pick up. Do you really think he's better off with some—urrp—random Rick w-who probably killed his own Morty?” C-136 Rick frowned.

“So, you're saying better the Morty-fucker you know than the devil you don't. You're still making a big mistake getting involved with your Morty. Y-you think you have any kind of future together? Best case scenario, he gets to cry over your corpse at the ripe age of 30. Worst case … You remember Bonnie? Andromeda? Unity?”

“I-well-that's not-,” B-290 Rick hesitated. Before he could find his words, his Morty pulled him down by his lapels into a full-mouthed kiss.

“Uhrg, yuck, gross, I think I'm gonna puke.” The C-136 pair cringed from the sight of their doubles swapping spit. Even B-290 Rick winced in pained surprise.

“Fuck, Morty, my nose-”

“Y-you don't get to take my Rick away,” said B-290 Morty, looping his legs around Rick's waist. “I-I don't have any friends, Mom and Dad are divorcing, Summer's never here. Rick's all I got.”

“Morty, you don't have to protect this sick old fuck, you can be safe-”

“I'm not doing anything that I don't want to.” And B-290 Morty resumed aggressively making out with his grandpa, this time grinding his hips into his crotch and moaning pornographically.

“Uhrg, fine, I'm leaving. If you ever want to talk, you have my coords. Enjoy your incest, you sickos.” The C-136 pair disappeared through a portal.  
  
C-136 Rick and Morty returned to their home dimension and plopped onto the couch. The boy stared straight ahead with dull eyes. Ordinary, Rick would put a hand on Morty's shoulder, give him a little praise so at least he'd end on a happy memory, but it didn't seem appropriate to paper over this experience.

“Morty, are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.”

“A-are you sure about that? Because sometimes, you think you can handle a situation but i-it just eats away at you on the inside.”

“I,” Morty hugged himself, “I don't know what happened. He thought I was his Morty, and he tried to do stuff to me-” Seeing the way Rick's hands balled into fists, Morty quickly backpedaled. “-but he stopped! Once he realized I wasn't his Morty, he stopped. A-and even though I broke his nose, he was so nice about it.”

“Nice. You thought he was nice.”

“Uhh-”

“That's how they get you! By being nice! Oh, it starts out small, inviting you into the lab, showing you how to do experiments, giving you your own lab coat. And then one day, you get reamed in the ass while you're counting fucking-fucking Geiger clicks.” Rick's heart was beating so fast. He took a breath to calm himself. “Just, you don't have to protect him, Morty. His sins are his own.”

“I know, Rick. B-but I couldn't even tell the difference between you two for most of the time. You joke about, about sexy things all the time, Rick, i-it was definitely you who told me to pack lotion when we were going on that weekend camping trip to Uranus.”

“Well, the difference between me and him is that I would never actually do it.” There was a lull in the conversation. Morty fiddled with his shirt.

“Um, Rick?”

“Yeah, Morty?”

“When you burst in on us, were you really trying to steal that other Morty?”

“No, of course not. One Morty is enough, y-you think I have time to deal with, with a bunch of kids running around, bumping into each other, getting all up in my junk?” Morty gave a wan smile.

“Okay. Well, uhh, good night, Rick.”

“Night, Morty.” Morty left to fill what was left of the night with adolescent dreams.

Rick's eyelids were drooping as well, but when he closed his eyes, all he could see was the venn diagram that B-290 Rick had drawn. Were there really so many Morty-fuckers out there? Rick knew that among infinite universes, there were bound to be some particularly nasty Ricks, but he hadn't expected to stumble across one outside of a jail cell.

Rick unlocked his smartphone and navigated to rickbook (The social media site for Ricks! NO MORTYS ALLOWED ™ ). On the homepage was an endless feed of crazy robots, explosions, and experiments on hapless Morty test subjects. Rick started a poll and tapped out a question:

[

Would you ever fuck your Morty?

](http://kwiksurveys.com/p/JZMDQ8Gg?qid=614441)

> Dear god no why would you even say that?  
> Maybe, if it was a fuck-or-die situation  
> Hell yeah, dawg!

Before he changed his mind, he hit the 'publish' button. Let's see how many Morty-fuckers there really were out there.

| 

***

“Ow, get off me, you're bumping my nose.”

“Sorry!” Morty scrambled off.

“W-what the hell was that all about, Morty, we were having a civil conversation.” Morty hugged Rick around the waist, looked up at him through his eyelashes.

“You wanted him gone, right? I-I just thought it would be the fastest way.”

“Well, you weren't wrong.” Rick dug through his lab coat. “Here, hold this.” Rick handed Morty a small mirror. Wincing, Rick pinched his nose with his hand and molded it back into shape.

“I-is it bad, Rick?”

“Gimme a second.” Rick injected his face with a syringe filled with clear liquid, waited a couple of seconds, and then let go.

“There, good as new.” To prove his point, he nuzzled into Morty's face.

“Eww, gross, you're getting blood all over me.” When Rick pulled away to wipe his nose, Morty licked the dried blood off the top of his lip.

“Hey, what happened to your neck?” Rick traced his finger along the half-circle of red.

“When the other Rick found out I wasn't his Morty, h-he tried to strangle me.”

“Jesus. Y-you know, that guy acts all high and mighty, but he's the one poaching from other universes, trying to kill me, attacking my Morty. You gonna be fine?”

“Yeah.” Morty gazed at Rick through hooded eyes. “But, you know, there is something you could do to help.”

“What?” Morty bared his neck.

“Kiss it better?”

***

Morty lay in the cradle of Rick's arms, feeling the beat of his heart through his back. Leftover sweat formed a moist layer between their skin. The old man sleeping at his back was already snoring gently, but the boy was still tense.

“Hey, Rick?”

“Mmm?” Rick mumbled.

“Were you really going to fuck that other Morty?”

“Wha? No, I was bluffing.”

“Good.” Morty relaxed, wrapped Rick's arm tight around him. Tight enough to pretend he would never let go.  
  
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The above poll links to a real poll that you can actually vote on. C-136 Rick will be reacting to the results in the next chapter.
> 
> Thanks to dadvans and lemonsweetbread for beta'ing and general conversation.


	6. 'Cest La Vie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick visits a Morty Brothel

Rick woke up to the blinking notification light of his cell phone. Without even rubbing the crust from his eyes, he unlocked his phone and jabbed at the blue Rickbook icon. The page was still open to the Morty-fucking poll he’d made last night before passing out on the couch.

He couldn’t blame a hangover for the nausea welling in his stomach. Half of the surveyed Ricks were actively fucking their Mortys, and only one fifth of them shared his revulsion for Morty molestation.

Maybe the poll was inaccurate. Only about a hundred Ricks had even voted, nowhere close to representing the infinite Rick population. Maybe the Ricks that fucked their Mortys were more likely to use Rickbook? But maybe the opposite was true, maybe the sane, platonic Ricks were more likely to use Rickbook, since they didn’t have as much dirty laundry to hide.

The Rickbook inbox indicated that several messages had been sent to him overnight; Rick opened the first with trepidation. As soon as the image loaded, Rick flung away his phone like it was dipped in Ebola. That POV shot of a Morty swallowing a Rick’s dick—nose flush with blue pubic hair, eyes looking up through his lashes—would be seared into his mind for eternity. Rick picked up his phone and, covering most of the screen with his hand, deleted the message.

The other messages asked more-or-less discreetly for threesomes, orgys, or “Morty swaps.” One Rick had even invited him to a meetup for fellow Morty-fuckers, telling him to bring “his favorite toy (besides Morty) and lots of lube ;)”. C-136 Rick blocked everyone who had messaged him and made a mental note of their dimensional coordinates, so he could punch them in the face should they ever meet.

As he decimated his inbox, the banner ad at the top refreshed, changing from an innocuous ad (pure fractal dust at commodity prices!) to “Hot, Slutty Mortys Ready For A Rick Dick Fuck.” The screaming yellow text was replaced by an uncensored video of a Morty being reamed in the ass on a couch exactly like the one Rick was lying on. “Get Your Own Morty Whore in Dimension XXX-69, Coords 1035-5766-2904” continued the ad.

Welp, that was enough inter-Rick-net for the day. Rick pushed off the blanket that someone had covered him with and stumbled into the dining room table. God, he needed a drink. A Bloody Mary, or maybe a shot of drain cleaner.

Beth had left him a covered plate on the table. Rick could hardly choke down the cold eggs and soggy toast, even accompanied by a tall glass of vodka. It shouldn’t have been surprising that Morty-fuckers existed: there were infinite universes containing infinite Ricks, with an infinite appetite for sinful diversions. In fact, since many Ricks treated their Mortys like disposable tools, it was inevitable that some bored and horny Rick would use his Morty to get off. But the existence of Morty whores—with advertisements!—meant that there were a significant number of Ricks that were Morty-sexual, that intentionally sought out Mortys to fuck rather than treating them like convenient bodies.

Why the hell would a Rick get hot and bothered over a Morty anyway? The teen was scrawny, pimply, and a blushing virgin to boot. Any Rick, unless he was a real doofus, could pick up a better lay at the nearest alien watering hole. What kind of Rick would pay money to fuck a Morty?

Rick chewed over that thought along with a piece of bacon. One part of his mind was trying to figure out how a Morty could possibly be sexy: was it his awkward innocence? his desire to please? his cracked-voice moans? Another part was trying desperately to censor the first. That was a dangerous line of thought. Too far down that rabbit hole, and he might find himself, after a night of blackout drinking, balls-deep in his own Morty.

But Rick’s mind worried at the mystery like a dog with a bone. Why would a Rick want to fuck a Morty? Would he, eventually, want to fuck his Morty? Old men didn’t usually hang out with teenage boys. Was his affection for Morty truly innocent? Of course it was platonic, it had to be, there was no way—he wasn’t like—

Unless he got to the bottom of it, the mystery would haunt his thoughts, waking and sleeping, and taint every word, every touch he gave his own Morty. He needed to know what started Ricks down such a dark path. And there was one easy way to find out: visit a Morty brothel.

If Morty whores were being advertised on Rickbook, brothels couldn’t be that hard to find. In fact, given what B-290 Rick had said about the legality of Morty-fucking, there were bound to be some on the Citadel of Ricks, because, for security reasons, only Ricks and Mortys could enter the Citadel. A bored Rick on a business trip might be willing to pay a premium for a convenient, pliable fuck-toy.

On his laptop, Rick pulled up the Citadel of Ricks tourism bureau website, which was obviously made by a Morty with a passion for graphic design. After getting past the introductory video, Rick turned off his speakers so he wouldn’t have to listen to the chip-tune background music. He navigated to the “local attractions” section, where he found a directory for “adult entertainment.” Rick filtered out the sex toy shops, glory holes, and fuck-machine showrooms until only the Morty brothels were left. Scrolling past names like _The Mortel_ , _Rent-a-Morty_ , and _The Morts Bar_ , Rick zeroed in on a place called _‘Cest La Vie_. The name was written in an elegant cursive font, and the description promised “discretion, unique Mortys and a different costume theme every night.” The preview picture showed a lineup of costumed Mortys: sexy cowboy, witch, firefighter, and Abraham Lincoln. Ricks did love a good costume.

Rick dialed the dimensional coordinates into his portal gun and shot a portal. He stepped through, entering a long hallway with a reception booth at the far end. The hallway had no entrances; behind Rick was a solid steel wall. Whoever owned the place had made it accessible by portal gun only, presumably to keep random Mortys from wandering in.

The booth was manned by a Morty dressed in a short black dress with a frilly white apron. Around his neck was a collar, tag engraved with a dimensional coordinate. A pair of floppy blond dog ears sprouted from the sides of his head. At the sight of a Rick, Dog Morty smiled with his whole body: mouth, eyes, and wagging tail.

“Hi Rick! Welcome to _‘Cest La Vie_! Today, w-we’re all dressed like maids! What’s your dimension?”

“C-136.”

“Okay!” Dog Morty pecked the coordinates into the keyboard. “Huh? The numbers aren’t showing up?” Dog Morty pressed a number key over and over, but nothing happened. “Oh no, I-I broke it! Oh geez, Mor-kitty is gonna be really, really mad at me.” His tail tucked between the fold of his legs.

“Lemme see that.” Rick leaned over the monitor to examine the misbehaving keyboard. “It’s not broken, y-you just forgot to press the num lock, rookie mistake.” Dog Morty pressed the number key again.

“It worked! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” The Morty looked at Rick, eyes wide with amazement, as if he’d just announced the cure to Space AIDS instead of performing basic tech support. Rick’s heart skipped a beat. He felt an urge to put Dog Morty in his pocket and take him home. He settled for petting him on the head.

“No problem, Morty-” Rick read off his collar, “E-881.”

“E-881? Oh, that’s not me, i-it’s the number of the Rick who bought me,”

“Bought? What are you, some kinda, kinda action figure?” The flush of affection drained out of Rick, like he’d been punctured.

“Exactly! I-I used to play with a lot of Ricks, but E-881 liked me the most, so he bought me. I’m not supposed to play with any other Ricks now. But-but there are still lots of other Mortys inside!”

“Uhh, sure. This E-881, if he ‘bought’ you, why are you still in this dump? Shouldn’t you be Bonnie-and-Clyde-ing it up elsewhere?”

“Well-”

The door behind the desk slid open, the low hum of conversation sounding from within. A Morty with cat ears walked out, dressed as sleekly as Dog Morty was frilly—a yellow vest over a black button-up. Dog Morty froze.

“M-M-Mor-kitty, w-what are you doing out here?”

“4C, you’re taking an awfully long time to check in this Rick,” said Mor-kitty, all business and irritation. “You’re not servicing Ricks ‘under the table’ again, are you?”

“Nooo, I-I’m just, uhh, ‘building rat port’ like y-you always say to do,” Dog Morty squeaked. The cat Morty’s eyes narrowed. Before he could speak, Rick interrupted.

“Actually, Dog Morty was gonna—urrp—check me in, but he forgot how to,” Rick bluffed. Mor-kitty seemed to buy the excuse, rubbing the bridge of his forehead.

“Uhrg. I’m really sorry for the delay, Rick, you know how Mortys can be. I’ll get you a drink on the house as soon as we get sorted out. Okay, 4C, I’ll show you how to register new Ricks again. And remember it this time!” Mor-kitty rapped Dog Morty’s head. He took control of the keyboard, slitted eyes darting across the information already entered on the screen.

“So, you’re a C-universe Rick, huh? Don’t see many of those around here. Welcome to _‘Cest La Vie_!” Mor-kitty rattled off by rote. “We pride ourselves in being satisfy every Rick’s taste, no matter how obscure. Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?” Mor-kitty focused on Rick’s face.

“I-I’m just shopping around, looking for-for something different, you know?” There was something unnerving about the intensity of Mor-kitty’s gaze. Was he animal enough to smell the lies on his breath?

“You’ve definitely come to the right place if you want ‘different.’ We have an extensive stock of exotic Mortys. If you think of anything you want, anything at all, just let me know.” Mor-kitty touched Rick’s arm. “We’ll take good care of you here. Now, I’ll just need to see your portal gun.”

“Hey, th-that’s private!”

“Oh, I don’t want to ‘play’ with it,” Mor-kitty chuckled, voice dripping with innuendo. “I just need to add a barcode scanner.”

“Give it to me and I’ll do it myself.” Rick was handed a stick-on scanner attachment. While he attached it, Mor-kitty explained:

“All the Mortys here have a barcode.” Mor-kitty turned Dog Morty’s wrist up to reveal a series of tattooed lines. “If you see a Morty you like, you can scan him for more details.” Rick lined up the red line of the scanner with Dog Morty’s barcode. Green text popped up on the portal gun’s screen: Dog Morty’s serial number (XBB-570_4C368FF1), his hourly price—blanked out now that he had been ‘sold’—even the length and girth of his erect penis.

“Some Mortys have hidden talents, so be sure to scan them all,” finished Mor-kitty.

“Sure, whatever, can I go in now?”

“Impatient, I see. There’s just one more thing, let me open up a tab-”

“I’ll pay as I go.” The last thing Rick wanted was to get into debt on the Citadel.

“But, Rick, you don’t want to be bothered by counting change while you’re enjoying yourself,” purred Mor-kitty. “Just let us take care-”

“No tabs,” declared Rick.

“Fine. The Rick is always right.” Mor-kitty’s tail spasmed, even though his face continued smiling. “Well, C-136, you’re all set. There’s an ATM inside, to the left.”

“Have fun at _‘Cest La Vie_!” called Dog Morty as Rick walked inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So glad to be getting back into the swing of writing. I took a break for a while, but now I should be on track to post every fortnight or so.
> 
> Futagogo drew some amazing fanart of Dog Morty and Mor-kitty: https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=65177994
> 
> Thanks to pugilist for proofreading.


	7. Inter-rick-gation

The inside of a Morty brothel should have been seedier: sticky floors, chained Mortys shuffling from one Rick dick to another, the scent of unwashed bodies and despair. Instead, the room that Rick found himself in could have been any men’s club, with long couches slung around low tables, lit by wrought-iron lamps, thick burgundy curtains covering the walls. Two Ricks played pool and another nursed a bottle of liquor in a corner. At the bar, a six-armed Morty polished glasses and wiped down the dark wood surface, taking care to avoid the snoring Rick slumped over the bar. Several Mortys in maid dresses flopped listlessly on the couches, keeping an eye out for any empty glasses to be whisked away.

At the ATM, Rick exchanged a half-sack of Flurbos for two thousand Rickbucks. He sat down at an empty table, trying to get his bearings. The couch—plush but springy—begged to be slouched in, but Rick sat ramrod-straight on the edge of the cushion. He couldn’t let his guard down for an instant. 

“Rick C-136?” A Morty holding a tray sidled next to him. He placed a glass containing two fingers of amber liquid in front of Rick. “Here’s your drink. Whiskey, neat, just how you like it.” 

“Uhh, thanks, Morty-”

“Call me Angel.” The Morty turned around to show off the white wings jutting from his back.

“Angel, huh. Don’t think I’m headed in that direction.” 

“Haha, that’s a good one.” Angel sat down next to him. For lack of anything better to talk about, Rick asked:

“So, uhh, what’s with the wings, Angel? You a frankenstein or a cyborg or what?”

“They’re real, I was born with ‘em, Rick. You can touch if you like,” he said, batting his eyes. The come-on was so obvious that Rick wanted to roll his eyes and tell him to try harder. But he needed to blend in, and that meant faking interest in the Mortys.

Rick gripped the outer edge of Angel’s wing and stretched the limb to its fullest extent, about two feet. He felt his way down the limb towards the back, ripping open the velcro at the back of the maid dress. Underneath the down of Angel’s back was a confused tangle of muscles, two sets of shoulderblades jammed in too small a space.

“Mmm, I can never reach that far back.” Angel made small, pleased noises as Rick dug into his tight back muscles.

“Wow, your back is super fucked up, Angel, i-it’s like a ten car pile up of bones back there. How much can you even move your wings?” Rick asked. Angel responded by flapping vigorously, sending bits of down flying. A wing smacked Rick’s face.

“I’m sorry!” Angel whirled around, and brushed off the feathers in Rick’s hair. When his hands moved lower, to clean off his pants, Rick grabbed Angel’s wrists.

“No, no, i-it’s fine,” said Rick, pushing Angel’s hands away. “You, uhh, really got into that flapping.”

“Ah, yeah, I don’t get to stretch a lot. I-It makes a mess and I keep knocking stuff over. Sometimes, I like to stand in front of the vent and pretend I’m flying. B-but it doesn’t really matter if I exercise ‘cause I can't fly anyway.”

“Y-you don't need wings to fly, that's what science is for. Any Rick could whip up a jet pack, just need a couple of tin cans, some cables, a welding torch. I-I bet they sell them in the stores around here.”

“No way, I couldn’t afford anything that fancy. Unless,” Angel whispered into Rick’s ear, “you helped me?” Rick got a bad feeling in the pit of his wallet.

“Oh, uhh, well, I don’t know if I can just give you that kind of money-”

“It doesn’t have to be a gift, Rick. I’ll work for it.” Angel placed a palm on Rick’s chest. “Lemme give you a sneak peek, big guy.” Rick was trapped, Angel straddling his waist and parting his lab coat. 

“Hey, lay off the first-timer.” The Rick from the corner lurched over, interrupting Angel before he could slip his hands under Rick’s shirt.

“Go away, J-41, I-I’m just trying to do my job.” Angel clutched C-136’s shirt.

“You got a problem with Angel?” said C-136.

“Angel? Is that what you're going by now?” The Rick laughed, loud and ugly. “You can bleach your feathers all you want but you’ll always be Pigeon to me.” The winged Morty scowled. “Oh, you don’t like that nickname? You wanna be called something fancy-French? How about:  _ Alouette, gentille alouette, Alouette, je te plumerai _ ,” J-41 sung drunkenly. He pounced on the winged Morty, planting sloppy kisses all over his face. C-136 scootched away from the squawking mess and knocked back his glass of whiskey in one gulp. It tasted as if someone had simply poured liquid smoke in vodka. 

“Now that’s more like it,” J-41 said to the disheveled Morty, rubbing his thumb on the bite mark at the join of jaw and neck. “A gift from me to you. Don’t you be playing the innocent.” The Morty squirmed out of J-41’s grasp. He snatched C-136’s empty glass out of his hand and slammed it on the tray, turning to leave.

“Wait.” The least Rick C-136 could do was give him something for his trouble. “Here.” C-136 waved a ten Rickbuck bill at the Morty. The Morty stared at the bill for a couple of seconds. When no more money was offered, he snatched the paper out of C-136’s hand, wadded it up and threw it at C-136’s head. Now it was C-136’s turn to stare, the crumpled bill bouncing off his forehead. The Morty stormed off.

“W-what the hell was that all about?” C-136 picked up the bill, smoothing it out and putting it back into his wallet. J-41 grinned wide, smug as a fox in a chicken coop. The other Rick plopped down on the opposite couch.

“Keeping the help from pulling the wool over your eyes. He gave you that sob story about not being able to fly, right? Tried to—urrp—make you his patron? Y-you can’t trust the Mortys here, they’ll say-do anything to get your money, that’s how they’re trained,” said J-41, smug as if he’d hand-raised them. “Great lays though.”

“Yeah, I bet.” J-41 sized up the newcomer, dissecting him with his sharp eyes. C-136 hadn’t wanted to get too close to a Morty-fucker, as if the moral disease was contagious, but he came here for information, and this fucker seemed more than willing to talk. Think of it as a spy mission. “You, uhh, come here a lot?”

“Practically live here, this place has cheap drinks, good company, and the view ain’t bad either,” said J-41, eyes tracing the fluffy tail of a bunny Morty as he walked by. “Me and the crew—that’s Q-13, K-52, and A-21—meet here to play cards, but they’re all out on business.”

“Didn’t know all the cool Ricks were hanging out at whorehouses. I’m usually more of an in-and-out kinda guy. They advertised ‘discretion,’ you know.” J-41 waved his hand dismissively.

“It’s the next best thing to keeping your own harem. None of these Mortys are gonna go roaming the citadel, bumping into your Morty and raising all kinds of awkward questions. Mor-kitty keeps them on a tight leash. Literally, sometimes. Oh, hey,” J-41 leaned backwards over the couch back and grabbed the skirt of a Morty walking by. “Shark, get us another round of drinks. And another round of servers, your pick.”

“Thure, J-thourty-one,” lisped the Morty behind his pointed teeth. 

“Atta boy.” J-41 pulled the Morty down into a short, backwards kiss. C-136 tensed at the PDA, somehow worse than the photos because it was happening right in front of him. J-41 picked up on his sudden stiffness, the way C-136’s hands clenched and unclenched. “What’s the matter, from a universe where you don’t kiss until marriage?”

“You just—openly—that Morty—”

“Oh, you’re still at the ‘shame’ stage, that’s cute,” J-41 said condescendingly, ‘I can’t believe I want to fuck my own grandson, I’m a monster, poor me, boo hoo.’ Relax!” He clapped C-136 on the shoulder. “Nobody kinkshames on the Citadel.” C-136 took a deep breath and forced himself to slouch into the couch.

“You-you’re right, I’m a long way from Earth. Actually, you’ve been around the block, maybe you can help me. I haven’t told my Morty about-about wanting him yet, I-I didn’t want to scare him. You look like you’ve been around the block, got any pointers?”

“Never heard of a Rick getting cold feet, but sure, I’ll tell you what I know. If your Morty was into you, you’d notice. Boy’s not subtle, i-if he isn’t checking out your ass or saying your name while jerking off, he’s not Rick-sexual. S-so what you’re really asking is how to get your Morty to say yes. Based on the Ricks I’ve talked to, it’s easier if Beth and Jerry are getting divorced, I mean, actually signing papers and paying alimony, not any of this wishy-washy, will-they-won’t-they crap. I-it doesn’t matter too much if that girl, Jessica, is out of the picture, though. There’s always more tits in the sea.”

“You can’t just pop the question out of nowhere,” J-41 continued, “you’ve got to soften him up first. Try patting him on the head and calling him a good boy, Mortys love that shit, can’t get enough of it. Get him used to being touched: pat-downs, cavity smuggling. Make it a bonding experience. A little bit of dream incepting never hurt either, let him come to you. Then there’s the big guns. You know voles mate for life, right?”

“Yech, don’t remind me.”

“Oh, right, right, the Cronenburg thing. There’s also these things called Morty Manipulator chips, lot of those floating around lately, you can get ‘em cheap. Real obvious though, your Morty can’t live on Earth with one. You could also just kidnap him, i-it doesn’t matter how he feels about you at that point, Stockholm Syndrome’s a bitch.”

So, Ricks fucked with their Mortys using grooming and mind control. Great. C-136 was going to ask how J-41 snared his Morty, but just then, two Mortys arrived at their table with two glasses and a bottle of Vodka. “Sweet, a matching set! This is Emma,” said J-41, pointing to the Morty with long hair and a hint of breasts underneath his? her? top, “and this is Em.” The other Morty looked like a normal Morty. “Take your pick.”

“What’s so special about that one?” asked C-136, pointing to Em.

“I’ll tell you later,” winked J-41.

“The girl Morty then.” C-136 might be able to pretend she wasn’t a dimensional clone of his grandson, although she was still creepily young. She sat down next to him, and Rick pulled her close, as was expected. J-41 went a step further, sliding Em onto his knee. He mouthed the nape of the boy’s neck, drawing a gasp.

“Hey, J-41, where’s your Morty? I-I don’t want to step on another Rick’s territory.”

“He’s not here, at school or something, I-I don’t know.” J-41 took a gulp of his drink. “Heh, want to hear about the time I got three of these buggers crawling over me?” he said to change the subject. C-136 dug further into the crack in his composure.

“Your Morty doesn’t get jealous of you spending all your time with these-these pretty little things?” J-41 paused mid-sip.

“W-why would I tell him I’m here, i-it’s none of his business.”

“Oh, I see what’s going on, you multi-Morty man. One’s not enough for you, gotta have a finger in every pie.”

“No! I’m not some kind of cheater. I-he-my Morty doesn’t know I’m into him. He doesn’t remember.”

“Jesus, y-you must have the dumbest Morty on the central finite curve, I mean, I think I’d remember getting hit on by my own grandpa-”

“There’s nothing wrong with my Morty!” snapped J-41. “He’s just not interested.” J-41 sank back into the couch, suddenly old. “I told my Morty that I was into him, that he was the hottest piece of ass this side of Orion, that I’d move the stars in his name, all that mushy stuff. Well, guess what? He freaked out, you know how Mortys get. I made the mistake of letting him sleep it over and next thing I know, I’ve got Summer and Jerry and Beth coming down on my ass. I managed to contain it before they got the cops involved, but god, what a mess. Oh yeah, another piece of advice: when you tell him, have a memory gun handy. One quick shot can save hours of memory surgery.”

“Wait, all those ways you said before—”

“They’re only possibilities, okay? Uncertainties. I-I tried telling him a couple other times, after he got rejected by Jessica, after we almost died trying to rob the Gromflamite’s Fort Knox, at the sunrise of the Prism Belt—y-you know how packed that place gets? Had to release a crate of Hull-Borer beetles just to get the place to ourselves. Nothing. Figures the Mortiest Morty would be a stubborn sack of shit.”

“And the ‘big guns’—”

“Do I look like a monster to you? I’m not going to-to brainwash my Morty into loving me.” J-41 rested his chin on Em’s shoulder. “Maybe it worked out for the best.  I-If I really had shacked up with my Morty, I would’ve gotten bored of him by now. Well, it’s not like I don’t have options.” J-41 groped Em’s ass under the dress, making him squeak. “I get what I pay for, here.”

“S-speaking of paying,” interjected Emma, “I-I tried to ring you up, C-136, b-but I couldn’t find your tab. Is J-41 treating?”

“No, I’m paying cash. How much?”

“Two hundred Rickbucks.”

“Two hundred!” C-136 turned to J-41. “Hey, I thought you said the drinks here were cheap.”

“Heh, you really are a yokel. Rickbucks aren’t worth jack shit. This place only uses ‘em so you can make it rain. You could get a thousand Rickbucks, easy, from an hour of patrols, I-I can hook you up if you’re interested.”

“Hell no, I’m not whoring myself out to the Council for Monopoly money,” C-136 grumbled, shoving a stack of bills at Emma, who stuck them down the front of her dress. J-41 tapped his temple.

“You know, C-136, Em and Emma come as a set, buy one get the other half off. W-we could split them for only 1500 Rickbucks each. What do you say?” Shit. 

“That’s, uhh, very generous of you, but I already have a Morty—”

“Ha, are you saving it for marriage? It’s not like he’s gonna know. Y-you could think of it as practice, you could really blow your Morty’s mind when you finally fuck him, ruin him for anyone else.” 

“I-it’s still a lot of money—”

“You’re not going to find a better deal, you should take it. Unless,” J-41 narrowed his eyes, “you’re not actually hot for Mortys.” A wave of panic flooded C-136’s body.

“W-what are you talking about, why would I be here if I didn’t want to-to fuck my grandson?” 

“Yeah, you say you do, but you’ve been staring at me this whole time like I crawled out of an unwashed Rekkus cloaca, you know, you’ve barely even groped your Morty.”

“M-maybe I have self-control, you think of that?”

“You’re a Rick and we take what we want. You know, you’ve been asking me an awful lot of questions, and now it’s my turn.” J-41 reached inside his lab coat, a bulge the size of a laser pistol’s muzzle pointing at C-136. “Hands on the table where I can see them.” C-136 scowled, but obeyed. 

“J-41, please, calm down,” urged Em. “We don’t want any trouble, y-you know this place is neutral.”

“It stopped being neutral the moment he walked in the door. Now talk. Who sent you? La Severa? The Diamond Collective? The Society Against Nature?”

“I-I’m not part of any society, I’m a free agent.” This Rick was clearly one card short of a royal flush. Despite the Mortys’ protests, J-41 leaned forward with a low threat:

“You’re here on a mission and I’ll make you talk, one way or another.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shit dawg, it's a cliffhanger!
> 
> It's been a really long time since I've written for RaM; my Rick voice has gotten all out of calibration. Well, I'll struggle on, since I've got a lot of plot ahead of me.
> 
> Now that Pocket Mortys came out, I realize there are some similarities with the "Special" Mortys, but I swear, I thought of it first.
> 
> Comment, review, do as you please.


	8. Sick

Fuck. C-136 was cornered, unarmed, pinned by J-41’s gun. His eyes darted around the room, weighing his options. Throw the bottle of vodka at him? He’d be dead before it hit. Use Emma as a human shield? Emma might have a hidden weapon under that dress; C-136 hadn’t groped her enough to tell. And that gun of J-41’s could be powerful enough to punch through them both. His eyes fell upon Mor-kitty, looking straight at them and grasping for something under the bar counter. If he called the guards, there was no way he was walking out of this a free man. 

“Okay, fine, you win,” C-136 conceded, “I’m on a mission all right, a mission to learn what turns a Rick into into a sick, Morty-fucking pedo. I’m not part of any society o-or mobster club. You happy?” J-41 examined his face carefully, like he was tracing a tangled set of wires in a control panel. “That’s the truth and you know it.”

“At least you believe yourself,” said J-41, after a tense silence. “If you were a sleeper agent, I’d  be fucked anyway.” He took his hands out of his breast pocket and reached for his glass. Em exhaled and sank into the back of the couch. In the distance, Mor-kitty raised his hands from under the bar and resumed talking to the six-armed Morty tending the bar, albeit with one ear pointed in their direction.

“That’s it?” said C-136, “you’re just gonna drop it?”

“Hey, if I made a mess of this place, I’d never get to—urrp—fuck Em’s sweet cunt ever again.” Now that his secret was out, C-136 cringed openly at J-41’s statement. “Aww, am I bothering you?” mocked J-41. He drew his slimy tongue across the shell of Em’s ear, baiting.

“T-this is completely disgusting, you’re fucked up fucking all these Mortys.” J-41 shrugged.

“They don’t have a problem with it, why should I?”

“You, Emma,” C-136 said to the Morty at his side. “Don’t you feel sick with all these old Rick bastards touching you?”

“Sick? I-I’m not sick at all, I’m healthy!” Emma’s eyes darted between the Ricks. “W-why, do o-one of you have a cold?”

“No, not health sick, like, traumatized. Nightmares and flashbacks a-and crying yourself to sleep and shit.”

“Oh. Umm, not really? Sometimes I dream about Ricks, but they’re not bad dreams. T-they’re kinda fun, there’s this one with the Rick and the waffle iron—” C-136 clamped his mouth over Emma’s mouth before she could finish her sentence.

“Don’t need to hear about it.”

“See, you’re saving fish from drowning,” said J-41, dismissively. “These Mortys don’t need rescuing, they-they’re in their element. They were—urrp—made to serve Ricks.”

“More like brainwashed.” Why else would so many Mortys drop their old lives and go work in a brothel? C-136 said to Emma, in as kindly a voice as he could, “Hey, don’t you want to go back to your family? I bet Beth misses you a lot.” 

“Who’s Beth?” Emma’s brow furrowed, like she’d just been sprung a pop quiz. “Is that a nickname?”

“Beth is your mother, don’t you remember her at all?” 

“Oh, mothers, I know about them,” Emma said perkily, “they’re those people who always die in comics and that makes the hero sad and decide to fight villains.”

“Everyone has a mother, Emma.”

“I don’t. I’m a clone. I-I really was made to serve Ricks.” So these ‘exotic’ Mortys weren’t stolen from their families, but created by some perverted Rick whose taste for variety put Caligula to shame. He must have started  _ ‘Cest La Vie _ to dump the Mortys when he tired of them. Depraved as it was, C-136 couldn’t begrudge him for trying to earn a little side cash.

“I wanna make you feel good,” continued Emma with painful sincerity. “Please, just tell me what you want.” She cupped the side of his face with her hand. C-136 flinched back, hard.

“I want not to be felt up by a clone of my grandson in a slutty fetish dress.” Emma’s hand wilted.

“Y-you don’t like the dress?” she said in a trembling voice. “I-I can go change—” 

“Don’t bother.” Rick pushed Emma away.

“Umm, i-is there anything else I can do?” Emma’s voice trembled.

“You can burn this place down and disintegrate any Rick who touched you,” said C-136, glaring at J-41, who flipped him the bird and continued biting Em’s neck.

“B-but, this is my home. W-where would I go?” She glanced from C-136 to J-41, as if the thought of leaving was completely alien to her. 

“Somewhere. Anywhere. Do what you want.”

“But-but Rick, I-I just wanna make you happy!” Big, fat, trembling tears rolled down Emma’s cheeks, each one a drop of acid on C-136’s heart. Which was ridiculous, since he wasn’t the one molesting the Mortys and making them believe that their sole purpose in life was to earn his praise.

“Hey, don’t listen to that—urrp—old prude,” leered J-41. “Come over here, y-you can make this Rick ‘happy.’” He pointed to the bulge in his lap. 

“Okay.” Emma wiped her tears on her micro-skirt and joined Em on J-41’s lap. The pair straddled his legs, J-41 groping their asses with wide, spider-like hands. It took all of C-136’s will not to kick him in the exposed crotch. J-41 was egging him on, he knew it, running his hands all over those Mortys, trying to provoke him into attacking and getting kicked out. C-136 gripped the couch cushion until the tendons stood out on his knuckles.

“Hey, where’s the bathroom? I need to puke.” 

“Take the door next to the bar, first on the-ah!” Em cut off with a moan after J-41 crooked his thigh up. Before his hands throttled J-41 of their own volition, C-136 stormed off, pulling aside the curtain so hard the rings rattled. He stepped into a steel gray corridor lined with metal doors and bustling with Mortys. The two doors closest to the entrance were marked with an “M” and a “R”, Rick opening the latter.

For a second, Rick thought he’d portaled into an entirely different dimension. Flickering florescent tubes, cracked mirrors, grungy speckled tile of the kind that looked filthy even when new. At the back kneeled a naked Morty with fox ears and tail, lapping up water from a showerhead. In case it wasn’t obvious what to do with him, large graffiti letters on the wall behind him read “Piss Slut, 50 RB.” Classy.

The more Rick examined the bathroom, the more it seemed off, somehow. Only a faint ammonia scent lingered in the air, not the eye-searingly stench one would expect from an abandoned bathroom. No spiderwebs covered the fluorescent tubes and the soap dispensers were still full. The whole setup was fetish fuel in the same vein as the maids outside: the Disney-land version of a sketchy restroom. A place for Ricks who liked the atmosphere to get off without worrying about disease. And judging by the heavy breathing and rattling coming from one stall, some Rick was definitely taking advantage of the place.

Fox Morty began coughing, a deep hacking that took over his whole body and continued even after Rick finished pissing. The Morty doubled over, dropping the showerhead, his belly constricting like he was trying to expel his lungs.

“Are you okay, Morty?” asked Rick. Fox Morty looked up with sunken eyes.

“I-I’m fine-” Fox Morty managed, before coughing again. This time, dark red splattered onto the gray tile.

“Holy shit, what was that?” Too many of Rick’s friends had died with bloody sputum on their lips for Rick to stand by idly.

“Nothing!” Using the shower head, Fox Morty washed the clot of bloody phlegm towards the drain in the floor, helping it along with his fingers. Rick rushed to the back of the bathroom, smacking into an invisible force field before he could reach the Morty. Glowing arrows appeared in the air, pointing towards a vending-machine-like money slot. Fuck, if this was another scam—Rick shoved a 50 RB bill into the slot, stepping through the hole which appeared in the force field.

A cloud of humid, piss-scented air hit Rick in the face. Fox Morty scrambled into a begging position, sitting on his knees, mouth open wide with his tongue sticking out. His ribs trembled with suppressed coughs. Rick grabbed Fox Morty by the arm, his fingers encircling the thin limb.

“Get up, I-I’m taking you out of here—”

“No!” Fox Morty scrambled uselessly against the wet floor. “Help! I’m being stolen!” 

“It’s for your own good, you should be in bed, not guzzling piss like Pacman—”

“Stop, I-I need to finish my shift, I can’t leave, I gotta keep going—” Easily, too easily, Rick lifted Fox Morty up and dragged him towards the gap in the forcefield. Fox Morty clawed at Rick’s hands with all his strength, which wasn’t much, apparently. After only a few moments, Fox Morty sagged in Rick’s arms, winded from his brief struggle. He breathed in fits, his gasps echoing in the tiled space. Continuing to move him might cause more damage than leaving him be. Rick lowered Fox Morty back to his knees, kneeling with him despite the water soaking into his pants. The Morty wilted in Rick’s embrace.

“Easy there, just calm down, I-I’m not going to steal you,” Rick crooned, brushing Fox Morty’s damp locks. “Does anyone-have you told anyone you’re sick?” Fox Morty nodded.

“Mor-kitty knows,” he panted. His skin formed a translucent layer over his ribs, like a skeleton wrapped in cellophane.

“A-and he didn’t get you treated?”

“No point. Not contagious.”

“You should at least be in bed.” Fox Morty shook his head.

“Stay useful. Back here, easy job, no standing.” Rick flared in anger. Use ‘em up until they wore out: was that how things worked around here? He’d give the Rick in charge a piece of his mind. 

The moment was interrupted by a Rick pounding on the forcefield. “Hey, what’s taking so long? I’m gonna burst out here!”

“Piss in a urinal!” C-136 called back. 

“I came here to piss on Mortys and goddamn it, I’m going to piss on some Mortys!” The Rick paid, stepped through the forcefield, and grabbed C-136 by the shoulders. 

“Hey, get off me!” C-136 elbowed backwards, catching the other Rick between the legs.

“Ow, fuck!” The other Rick collapsed backwards to the ground and curled into a pained fetal position. A dark stain bloomed from his crotch, mustard-yellow pooling on the floor. Fox Morty brushed off C-136’s hand and crawled towards the downed Rick. He stuck his head towards the Rick’s crotch, lapping up the piss. C-136 gagged.

“Good-good boy, Red,” said the other Rick, petting Fox Morty with a shaky hand while keeping an eye on C-136. The slurping and the urine odor turned Rick’s stomach. There was no point in helping further, if ‘Red’ didn’t even want to be saved. C-136 left the bathroom, unease burning in his stomach like a mouthful of bad rotgut. He leaned against the wall, collecting himself.

One part of his mind recoiled from seeing a sickly version of his own grandson reduced to drinking piss. His own Morty would never stand to be treated that way. These clone Mortys sure were a piece of work, desperately obedient to the point of self-sacrifice. Maybe they’d had surgery to remove the part of the brain responsible for self-preservation. 

Another part, his devilishly-practical side, pointed out the many conveniences of a well-behaved Morty. Think of all the time he could save if his Morty didn’t bitch and moan every time Rick harvested organs from an endangered species or sold superweapons to a genocidal overlord. And however brainwashed the clone Mortys were, they seemed happy enough, right? Why mess with a good thing?

Rick watched a steady stream of stagehand Mortys prepare the brothel rooms, arriving from around the bend of the hallway with carts laden with medical devices, whips and handcuffs, togas and bowls of fruit. Just how big was  _ ‘Cest La Vie _ anyway? The hallway could end in 50 feet or it could tunnel through the entire citadel, riddling the entire edifice like a worm in an apple. The only way to find out was to investigate for himself. See how far the rot spread. And whether it could be incised. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just like the real show, I entered a hiatus on a cliffhanger. I should be able to finish the 'Cest La Vie arc relatively shortly, since I've most of it written already.
> 
> As always, comment if you care!


	9. Bon Appetit

Rick walked into the depths of   _‘Cest La Vie_ with a determined stride and an impatient set to his eyebrows: the perfect disguise for infiltrating a facility. Nobody questioned a man who knew where he was going, even if he didn’t. The hallways branched off at irregular intervals, but Rick kept to what he thought was the main path. Mortys came in and out of the closed rooms, revealing fantastical setups: walls studded with attachment points and Saint Andrew’s Crosses, a floating bed in the middle of a fully mirrored room, a high school chem lab? Rick did a double take. Yes, it was exactly as he remembered. A buret shone innocently on the black countertop, clamped over a beaker of clear fluid. A jolt of panic hit him, his heart thrashing like it was trying to escape his chest. No, keep it together. He leant against his wall, inhaling deeply. Forget it, it was decades ago, he’s long dead—

“A-are you okay, Rick?” A Morty with bunny ears lay a tentative paw on his back. Rick started away.

“I’m fine, just had a little-a little too much to drink.” Rick put on his most charming smile, showing off his yellowed teeth. Damned if he was going to let a little flashback stop him from his mission.

“Wow, I didn’t think that was possible,” said Rabbit Morty. “Do you need to lie down? I can get you a room,” he continued, in sympathetic tones.

“No, I need to get going, I’m in a hurry,” Rick brushed off. He tried to advance down the hallway, only to be blocked by the Morty.

“Hey, where’s your Morty? Y-you’re not supposed to be back here without an escort, or two.” Since when did Ricks need permission to go anywhere? But he couldn’t act suspicious.

“Oh, he went ahead without me, I’m meeting up with him later,” lied Rick.

“Which room is it? I’ll take you to him,” offered the Morty. “It’s kind of a maze back here.”

“Nice of you to offer, but I can take myself there, I mean, I’m sure you’re very busy—urrp—getting ready for the guests—”

“Not really.” Was that a glimmer of suspicion in those beady black eyes? “It’s pretty quiet right now. Who are you supposed to be meeting, anyway?” Crap.

“E-excuse me!” A cart carrying an oversized plate cover veered towards them, pushed by a Morty wearing a chef’s hat and white apron. Chef Morty struggled to twist the cart away, but it was intent on crashing into the wall. “Hey, uh, Flopsy, could you give me a hand here?” Rabbit Morty stepped back, avoiding his eyes.

“I-I can’t! I just remembered that I’m late! Late for a very important date!” He ran off down the hall, leaving behind a confused Rick.

“Wait, come back!” called out Chef Morty. But he was gone, vanished behind a corner of the labyrinth. All of the other Mortys had disappeared as well, so it was just the two of them in the hallway. “Anyone?” called out Chef Morty. “I only need you for a sec.”

“Where are you going? I’ll help,” said Rick. Something about the situation seemed off to Rick, but then again, if it helped him get deeper into the brothel…

“You will?” Chef Morty lit up, “Oh, thank you so much, I’m really in a hurry here. You take the handles and push, and I’ll lead the front.” Between the two of them, they finally wrestled the cart into submission. Their progress was announced by the squealing wheels, a high-pitched note that stabbed a straight line between the ears. Curious Mortys would peek from behind doors, start in fright, then shut them quickly.

“These Mortys, they look like they just saw Britney Spears without her wig on. What’s under this cover?” Some kind of red sauce was seeping from underneath, like juice from a rare steak.

“You could call it the house special,” said Chef Morty diffidently.

“House special, huh. You’re telling me this place has a restaurant, too? Rooms, room service, throw in an ice machine and call it a hotel.”

“It’s kind of a secret, actually. We don’t advertise it, you gotta be in the know.”

“That fancy? I bet what’s under here is real pricy.” Rick tapped the lid, which made a muffled ring. There was quite a lot of something underneath it.

“You don’t know the half of it,” muttered Chef Morty. “At least it pays well.”

“So they do pay all you Mortys.”

“Kind of?” Chef Morty shrugged. “I get paid because I come in from outside. I’m a Real Morty, you know, not a clone. Dimension D-347,” he said with pride.

“What’s a nice Morty like you doing in a place like this?” asked Rick.

“I live on the Citadel, me and my Rick, we kind of have to after I broke him out of a Galactic Federation jail. Everything’s so pricy here, but we can’t go back to our home universe, so we have to make it work, I mean, I’ve got another four-hour shift at the Ricknasium after this.” Chef Morty had bags under his eyes and a glazed stare forward. He looked a little under sixteen, but he felt older than that.

“You must be pretty desperate to work in a Morty brothel. Lotta creeps out there, just waiting to pounce.”

“Like you?” Chef Morty’s step turned into a sashay, his hips swaying from side to side.

“That’s not what I meant—”

“You can look, but don’t touch. I’m not on the menu anyway, I already have a Rick.”

“And how’s that working?” Rick grimaced.

“It’s working.” Chef Morty sighed, resuming his normal walk. “I mean, he’s the only thing I have left. My Rick says he’s working on something that’ll puts us in the penthouse at the Rick-tz. But it’s been a long time coming.” A pause. “He think’s I’m a waiter in a high-class restaurant. I didn’t tell him I was here, because, well, I figure he’d get jealous.”

“Your Rick’s a lucky man.”

“Yeah,” Chef Morty said flatly. “He is.”

The cart wound its way down a side corridor, wheels screaming the whole way. Without the welcoming bustle of Mortys, the steel walls and florescent lighting lent a cold, industrial air. At the end of the hall was a door, beyond which sounded the boisterous laughter of tipsy Ricks. The smell of sizzling meats wafted in the air. Rick’s stomach growled.

“Thanks a bunch for helping me out,” said Chef Morty. “Once I’m done here, I can get you something from the kitchen.”

“No problem, Morty. Knock’em dead.” A cheer sounded when Morty opened the door. Four Ricks dressed in an indistinguishable fashion sat at a table with a Korean-style barbeque grill embedded in the middle. Several empty bottles of sake stood on the table.

“Finally!” said a Rick.

“What took you so long?”

“Sorry for the wait, Ricks,” said Chef Morty, “here comes the main course.” With a flourish, Chef Morty opened the lid—

—and revealed the gutted, limbless torso of a Morty. His abdominal cavity had been hollowed out and used as a serving dish for thin slivers of raw meat, surrounded by dipping sauces. Blood oozed weakly from his tourniquet-bound limbs and stained the ruffled lettuce bed. An apple gagged his mouth in a Martha Stewart flourish gone horribly wrong.

C-136 stood frozen in horror at the gristly meal before him. How could—This was a sick joke, right? Cannibalism was one thing if you were starving, but these well-fed and well-boozed Ricks were chomping at the bit to eat their dearest companion—The Morty’s chest wavered in staccato. C-136’s blood ran cold.

The Morty was still alive.

“Aww yeah, that’s the good stuff,” commented a Rick. “Dibs on the eyeball.”

“Hold on, lemme get a selfie in first.” A Rick held back the other’s eager hand. “This is going on Rickstagram for sure!”

The flash went off. The butchered Morty winced at the light. And Rick C-136 vomited all over the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, another set of tags. They'll be a mile long by the end of this.
> 
> Comment if you care!


	10. Eye-jinx!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> C-136 Rick interrupts a dinner party.

All eyes turned to C-136 he vomited his complimentary drink, even those of the sacrificial Morty. 

“Who the fuck is this asshole?” said a Rick. “He’s ruining the ambiance!”

“Now I’ve lost my appetite,” said another.

“More for me!” A fork hovered over the Morty’s face.

“What the hell is wrong with you Ricks!” roared C-136. He slapped the fork out of the Rick’s hand, which fell to the floor with a clatter. “Keep your hands off him!” he snarled, like a lioness defending her cubs. C-136 hunched protectively over the Morty, shielding his abused body with the thin white cloth of his labcoat. 

“Hey, Morty, it’s okay,” C-136 murmured, stroking the Morty’s hair. “Grandpa’s going to fix you right up.” The Morty moaned incoherently from behind his apple-gag. “Shh, don’t talk.” C-136 assessed the damage with the cool efficiency of a battlefield surgeon. The Morty’s body cavity had been scooped out, leaving nothing to build a functioning GI tract out of. His arm and legs were bleeding stumps and the likely source of the meat slices piled in his gut. Rather than trying to fix his body, the easier solution would be to extract the Morty’s brain and implant it into something else. C-136 grabbed a carving knife from the table.

“Okay, Morty, this’ll just hurt for a second.” C-136 covered the Morty’s eyes with his hands as he lined up the knife. He took a sharp breath and steeled his nerves for what he was about to do. “You’ll go to sleep and when you wake up, you’ll be in a nice new body far away from these cannibal bastards.” The knife sliced a red line on the Morty’s forehead, bleeding sluggishly into the Morty’s hairline. Instead of flinching, the Morty pressed into the wound and rocked his head back and forth, as if he was trying to saw it deeper. Poor thing must be delirious. C-136 held his head down firmly. “Hold still, Morty, i-it would be real bad if my hand slipped.”

“What the fuck are you doing to our dinner?” complained a Rick with a fancy lace handkerchief hanging from his lab coat. 

“What does it look like?” said C-136. “I’m saving this Morty. You can eat o-or fuck this corpse after I’m done, I don’t care.” The Ricks burst into a chorus of laughs. “What? What’s so funny?” C-136 snapped.

“You fool,” the handkerchief Rick said, “can’t you see? This Morty’s having the time of his life.”

“That’s like saying that chick from Jurassic World was having a ‘[high-flying dinosaur adventure](https://youtu.be/LBTE3aH5gpw)’ when she got eaten,” said C-136. 

“Don’t believe me? Ask him.” C-136 eyed handkerchief Rick suspiciously, but unhooked the apple from the Morty’s teeth.

“Ah, Rick, more!” panted the Morty. C-136 stared blankly. What the fuck? He must be hearing things. 

“What did you say?”

“More! Cut me more!” the Morty begged, with all the subtlety of a porn star. How could the Morty possibly be enjoying this? Was he drugged? It made no sense. C-136 stood frozen, unwilling to comprehend the situation. The Morty took matters into his own hands, lunging for the knife using his limb stubs for leverage. C-136 recoiled, dropping the knife on the ground. “No, I‘ve waited so long, Rick, please,” the Morty whined.

“See, he loves it,” said the handkerchief Rick. “Watch this.” The Rick picked up a fork and ran it along the Morty’s bleeding head wound, scratching parallel lines of blood on his cheek. “You like that, babe?” he crooned in a deliberate mockery of C-136’s voice.

“Stop teasing!” cried the Morty.

“All right, then.” The Rick lifted his arm up dramatically and plunged downward. Paralyzed with disgust, C-136 could only watch as the tines popped the Morty’s eye. The Morty keened and arched his back as if he’d just orgasmed, gobs of clear vitreous humor spurting out of the socket like so much semen. C-136 stood as frozen as if his intestines had been dipped in liquid nitrogen.

“Yeah, these guys come gagged because they’re loud,” said the handkerchief Rick casually. “I usually save the eyes for last, they make a great dessert.” He twirled the fork around in the socket, earning more whimpers of pleasure.

“Please, Rick, the other one! Wanna feel it pop,” begged the Morty.

“What? How?” C-136 stammered.

“The sicko in charge here made a Morty with his pain nerves swapped for pleasure. This guy loves getting hurt, can’t get enough of it.”

“That’s sick, how could someone—” C-136’s back muscles spasmed.

“You’ve gotta stop being so planetary-minded,” smirked the other Rick. “It’s the perfect system. We get to taste the forbidden fruit, and this Morty gets to experience a, ahem, petite mort.” The Rick stabbed the fork deeper into the Morty’s eye socket like a ghoulish parody of intercourse. The Morty jackknifed his head into the fork, driving it deep into his head. He seized, back arched, his remaining eye rolling back into his head. A cry of ecstasy. Then he fell backwards, fork popping out of his socket with a wet slurp.

“Morty?” C-136 asked.

No response. 

“Morty!” C-136 cradled his cheek. “Say something!” Still nothing.

“Whoops, got a little over-excited there,” said the other Rick. “See, this is why I save the eyes for last—” 

“You monster! You-you Morty-killer!” C-136’s hands tightened into fists, his fingertips squeezed white.

“It’s nothing he wouldn’t—urrp—have done to himself.” The Rick wiped his fingers on his handkerchief. “I hear raising these Mortys is real pain, gotta keep them in bubble wrap to stop them from accidentally disemboweling themselves.” 

“You guys done yapping over there?” interjected a Rick. “I’m gonna get started on this Morty before he gets cold.” He leaned over the table, reaching for a slice of liver with a lacquered chopstick. C-136’s fists jittered with force. The veins of his arms popped into relief.

“R-Rick, please, calm down,” stuttered Chef Morty. He clutched at his apron, twisting it between his hands. “Don’t do anything stupid—”

C-136’s fist swung out in slow motion, catching the Rick in the nose right before the slab of liver hit his tongue. Delicate nasal bones broke with a crunch. The Rick fell backwards, chair tipping, chopsticks flying end-over end. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. The precipitous slab of liver—knocked by C-136’s fist into a high arc—smacked into his face like the conclusion of an argument. 

“Oh geez!” Chef Morty threw himself against the wall as the other Ricks sprang up. With shaking hands, Chef Morty pulled out a cell phone. “Hello, Mor-kitty? We have a situation in the dining room—”

C-136 ducked down, grabbing the knife, and thrust it at Handkerchief Rick’s face. The pointed tip came to an inch from the Rick’s face before he arrested it, grabbing C-136’s forearm. Handkerchief Rick kicked the cart over, sending the dead Morty flying. The corpse hit C-136’s torso and he took a step backwards. Handkerchief Rick went on the attack, stepping forward and turning C-136’s wrist inward. The two wrestled for control of the knife, the blade zigzagging dangerously in the air. Each step left a trail of red.

Their dangerous tango ended when Handkerchief Rick’s foot landed on a slice of meat. His arms windmilled as he lost balance. C-136 used this opportunity to wrench his knife hand free. He kicked the other Rick in the stomach, and, while he was gasping for breath, hooked his arm around the Rick’s neck. C-136 pointed the blade at the Rick’s face.

“Nobody fucking move!” C-136 shouted. The other two Ricks glanced at each other, but maintained their fighting stance. “I mean it! I’m a C-Universe Rick, that means dangerous and unpredictable.” C-136 grinned with all his teeth, his eyes wild.

“Y-you won’t get away with this—” C-136 cut Handkerchief Rick’s cheek with the knife, just a little scratch to shut him up. 

“Keep talking, and you’re going to end up like the Joker, Heath Ledger style.” C-136 took small steps backward towards the door, keeping his eyes on the two remaining Ricks. If he could just make it back to the portal zone, he could hop back to his home universe and safety.

The tail of his lab coat was sucked backwards by a gust of wind. Someone had opened the door, but Rick didn’t dare turn around. Chef Morty—who had been cowering in the corner—said,

“Mor-kitty, do something!” A blow hit C-136’s neck from behind, right below the ear. C-136’s knees gave out. He fell. The floor rushed forward.

Then, darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for following along! It took a while to figure out how exactly this scene was going to go, but I think I ended up in a pretty good place. I hope to maintain a posting schedule of one chapter a month.
> 
> Comment if you care!


	11. The Invitation

Rick C-136 came to with grit biting into his cheek. Cold metal cut into his wrists, his arms wrenched behind him by handcuffs. His knees ached from kneeling on the concrete floor. Rick eyes opened to darkness, cut by a thin line: light shining from the bottom of a closed door. He sat up, bumping his back against an exposed pipe. A metallic tang coated the back of his throat and persisted after swallowing.

When his eyes adjusted, Rick found himself in a small closet, barely big enough to stretch his legs in. The room was empty of anything that could be used as a weapon. Even the light bulb had been removed. A faint bleach scent lingered in the air. That, combined with the size of the room, suggested that he had been stashed in a broom closet. He was probably still in  _ ‘Cest La Vie _ , awaiting delivery to the authorities. Who knows how many laws he’d broken when he attacked those other Ricks. And what sort of fiendish, Rick-devised punishment awaited him?

He tugged the handcuff chain against the pipe, but it held firm. If he could reach the emergency laser in his pocket, he could cut through the chain easily. Rick pressed his torso to the wall, searching by feel for the small metal cylinder. But his pocket was empty. His portal gun was gone too, its comforting weight absent. Crap. Looks like he was going to be stuck here for a while.

Rick shifted on his knees, trying and failing to find a more comfortable position. Just what the hell had he gotten into? All he wanted was to find out what turned a Rick into a Mortyphile. Now he was trapped, facing an unknown fate. Images flashed in his mind: the winged Morty being molested by a Rick, a too-skinny Fox Morty coughing his lungs out, a Morty torso served on a silver platter. Horrific sights that would forever be burned into the back of his eyelids.

The worst part was that Rick had only scratched the surface of the offerings at  _ ‘Cest La Vie _ . And  _ ‘Cest La Vie  _ was only one of many Morty brothels at the Citadel. All those alternate versions of himself, buying Mortys, fucking Mortys, eating them— 

No! C-136 was different! He wasn’t like those other Ricks, those sickos, using Mortys for cheap kicks. At least when C-136 took advantage of his Morty, he made sure the boy got something out of it. He wasn’t Rick XBB-570, that fucking enabler. What kind of sick mind invents the perfect cloning technology, and, instead of revolutionizing healthcare or solving the problem of Morty-less Ricks, uses it to populate a brothel? Those poor clone Mortys. 

Goddamn it, he hated being powerless. He couldn’t rescue the fox Morty, he couldn’t save the butchered Morty from dying, and now he was trapped. He’d been rash and careless, thinking he could take on those other Ricks and escape without consequences. He could be jailed, or even executed, and his Morty would never know what happened to him. His Morty could be assigned to another Rick—

Light hit his face like a bucket of water. He winced, shielding his eyes.

“C-136. You’re awake.” It was Mor-kitty, the brothel’s manager. The cat Morty stepped in front of Rick, his body an ominous silhouette. “You’ve caused me quite a lot of trouble,” he said coldly, without a hint of stutter. “Unauthorized entry, unprovoked assault on two Ricks—”

“Unprovoked my ass.” The words came out gravely. Rick cleared his throat. “What was I supposed to do, stand there and-and let a Morty get eaten?”

“If you want to make a statement, join Morty Lives Matter. I’m sure they’d love to count a Rick in their number.” Mor-kitty tossed his head back. “By all rights, I ought to have you arrested. The Council takes a dim view of Rick-attackers.” Mor-kitty reached into his pocket. Rick tensed, preparing to be shocked by a taser, something to keep him down while he was being dragged to the slammer.

Instead, Mor-kitty pulled out a mini bottle of clear liquid. He cracked open the top and lowered it to Rick’s face. Rick eyed it with suspicion. Who knew what drugs were in it?

“It’s not poisoned.” Mor-kitty swallowed a mouthful of liquid. “See?” He again lowered it to Rick’s level. This time, Rick guzzled it greedily, the blessed water leaving a cold trail to his stomach. Water dribbled from the corners of his mouth. Too soon, the bottle was empty. When he was finished drinking, Mor-kitty pulled out a napkin and patted his face dry. A kind gesture, if a touch condescending.

“If only more Ricks felt the same way you do,” Mor-kitty said. 

“There must be decent fucking Ricks on the Citadel,” Rick railed, “ones that know how to treat a Morty right.”

“Yes, but I’m not in the business of decency.” Mor-kitty smiled bitterly. “The meal you interrupted paid for an entire month of operating costs. I had to comp the whole thing to keep my high rollers happy. They wanted to drag you off to the Council, you know.” Mor-kitty crushed the water bottle and put it back in his pocket. “I talked them down to banning you and every other C-universe from my establishment.”

“How Rick-cist of you.”

“All Ricks are the same, but some are more the same than others.” Mor-kitty stood up. “The other Ricks should have cleared out by now. I’ll escort you back to the portalling zone.” Mor-kitty pulled out C-136’s portal gun and scrolled through the coordinates.

“Hey, don’t mess with my portal gun.” Mor-kitty was dangerously overstepping his bounds. Sure, he might have been the manager of this place, but he was still just a Morty.

“How else am I supposed to send you home?”

“There’s three things I won’t stand for: warm beer, dry pussy, and people touching my portal gun—” A ringtone interrupted Rick’s rant.

“Hold on, my Rick’s calling.” Mor-kitty swapped the portal gun for his cell phone. “Yes, Mor-kitty speaking.” That was Rick XBB-570 on the line! C-136 sat up. He strained his ears, but he couldn’t make out what the other Rick was saying, only a general tone of voice. “No, I’m just dealing with a difficult customer,” said Mor-kitty. “I’ll be down shortly.”

“Rick XBB-570?” said Rick C-136. A curious tone came from the phone.

“That’s the difficult customer,” Mor-kitty said. “I was just escorting him out—” 

“Wait, I-I-” Quick, what would grab the other Rick’s attention? “I-I’m your biggest fan!” Mor-kitty blinked, taken aback by C-136’s declaration. “Your Morty clones are amazing, I-I’ve never seen anything like them!” Mor-kitty cupped the phone.

“Let's talk in a more private location—” Rick XBB-570 cut Mor-kitty off. Mor-kitty frowned, but set the phone to speaker anyway.

“Hello, who is this?” asked Rick XBB-570.

“I’m Rick C-136, but that’s not important. I-I can’t believe I’m talking to you” Rick gushed, channeling his Morty’s enthusiasm over meeting the Vindicators for the first time. “I have so many questions! How did you solve trans-species genomic rejection? I mean, I’m staring at a real live cat boy with a tail and everything.” Said cat boy was staring at Rick like he’d grown a third testicle.

“Woah there, don’t give yourself rug burn jerk-jerking me off,” said Rick XBB-570, amused. “Been a long time since I’ve had a fan.”

“I’ve been just-just dying to meet you! Lets chat, Rick to Rick. Gimme fifteen minutes, half an hour, tops!”

“XBB-570, if I may interject,” said Mor-kitty. “Rick C-136 just attacked two other Ricks. I suspect he has ulterior motives for seeing you.”

“They were asking for it,” said C-136, “They weren’t—they weren’t treating a Morty right.”

“Sounds like you and me have a lot in common,” said Rick XBB-570. “Mor-kitty, bring this fellow down.”

“But—”

“I haven’t had guests in ages!” XBB-570 sounded bubbly. “And I’m sure you can handle him, Mor-kitty.” Mor-kitty’s tail jerked.

“Of course. Sir. We’ll be at your door in just a few moments.” Mor-kitty hit the call-end button with more force than necessary. He took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “Care to tell me what’s going on?”

“Well, when one Rick loves, and I mean really loves, another Rick, the dick in urethra kind of love—” Mor-kitty wrinkled his nose.

“Uhrg. Save it for the working Mortys.” Mor-kitty knelt down to Rick’s level. “I’m warning you.” Hot breath ghosted Rick’s ear. “XBB-570 is  _ my _ Rick. Any sudden moves and you’ll wish I’d left you to the Council.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for FlorinaLyndis for proofreading.
> 
> Like what you read? Let me know with a comment!

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me at on tumblr [@mariachismutshroom](mariachismutshroom.tumblr.com) for more delicious rickmorty action!


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